As customers get more familiar with the available direct ordering service at your restaurant, it is key to stay ahead of the curve and enable them to pre-order for their meals in advance! Not only does it bring in more sales, it makes your customers happier as well.

What's the best part? By offering pre-ordering, you're working even when you're not. Even if your restaurant is closed for dine-in and on-demand orders, you can still accept online orders as long as the fulfilment time is scheduled for later.

Pre-ordering means your customers get what they want, exactly when they want it.
Here are the reasons why you can’t ignore offering a pre-ordering option to customers:‍

1. Customers don't like waiting. As they have a busy schedule, they want to plan their meal and order it in advance so that their food is either delivered or ready for pick-up at a pre-decided time.
2. When customers pre-order a meal for takeaway, they don't have to wait in line with the rest and can simply bypass the crowd, Hence, giving them a sense of special service.
3. Customers that pre-order are most likely to be your most regular and loyal customers. Ensure a good experience and they'll keep coming back for more.
4. Last but not the least, you're making the lives of customers easier. Pre-ordering helps them cut the time they spend on deciding what to order in the middle of their day, and ensures timely delivery or pick-up when expected.

That's great, pre-ordering is beneficial for customers.
But here's why it's essential and helpful for your restaurant: 

1. Pre-ordering is always on duty, making sales.
Unlike your restaurant that has closed hours, staff that has shifts and phone lines that may be busy - a restaurant pre-ordering system is active and available to customers at all times. Hence it is selling for you even while all other channels are inactive. This gives a big impetus to your revenue.

2. Improved logistics and resource management, easier procurements and reduced wastage.
Thanks to downloadable pre-order reports, you can plan the operations for your upcoming days in advance based on the covers you've got to deliver or prepare. It helps you estimate and assign the manpower required across different teams and tasks, based on the knowledge of pre-orders in advance. Further, it gives you a better idea of the raw material requirements and hence, enables you to order the right quantities and prevent the wastage of excess.

3. Helps turning around slow periods into revenue generating hours.
Have you noticed certain days of the week generating lower revenue than the rest? Why don't you create an offer redeemable only on pre-orders placed on those specific days? Or simply create special menu items available to pre-order only on those specific days. Hence, encourage customers to schedule their orders for your slow days and convert low performing days into high performing ones.

4. It eases things for your staff.
Even just knowing the exact orders for one-third of the total, ahead of time would make the lives of your staff easier. Pre-ordering systems make that possible. You'll notice your staff to be more efficient, organized and less stressed.

Now we're sure why you didn't think of all this a while ago? But don't worry, it's never too late.
And to help you out Thrive has made setting up pre-ordering on your menu or even specific items easier than ever.
Check out these links from our knowledge base to know how you can set it up:
https://help.thrivenow.in/205/how-to-activate-or-deactivate-pre-ordering-at-an-item-level?mid=0

In case you need further help, please feel free to write to us on support@hashtagloyalty.com.