Tips For Bringing Restaurant Delivery In House

Tips For Bringing Restaurant Delivery In House

by | Sep 3, 2020 | Covid-19, Delivery software, Dispatch software, Drivers, Manage Drivers, Restaurant Industry

As the pandemic continues, the restaurant industry is, of course, not back to business as usual. Although many establishments have been allowed to open for on-premise dining, limitations that support social distancing have meant that customers have looked to delivery, takeout, curbside, and drive-thru to fill the gap, among other creative solutions.

But the increase in off-premise dining isn’t a fast trend that will go away, the data shows. Off-premise sales were already growing four times faster than dine-in before the pandemic. Going forward, the restaurant landscape will likely continue to look different than it did before 2020. That means if you’re a restaurant owner, now is the time to up your delivery game; the best way to accomplish that is to reduce your reliance on third-party apps by launching in-house delivery.

Benefits of Doing Your Own Delivery

At the beginning of the pandemic, many restaurants with limited or no delivery capabilities had no other choice than to employ third-party delivery services to get food and beverages to their customers. While they may have seemed like a good option at the time, the exorbitant commission fees, often around 30 percent or more, would often eat away at any possibility of making a profit. Bringing delivery in-house eliminates the middleman and therefore allows you to keep much more of your hard-earned money.

Not only does keeping delivery close to home increase your margin, but it also allows you to have better control over food quality and the entire customer experience. Customers who receive a late order or get food that has been temperature abused often resort to blaming the restaurant, not the delivery service. By maintaining control of the journey from the kitchen to the destination, restaurant owners can ensure a safe and positive experience for their customers.

Customer experience is the key factor that will foster brand loyalty and keep people coming back time and again — regardless of what is going on in the world. Even if required to stay home and self-quarantine, delivery of a favorite food or knowing that you’re supporting a favorite local business can make things feel a little more like normal.

Tips For Bringing Delivery In-House

Managing the day-to-day operations of a restaurant business is already challenging, so trying to add delivery to your list of responsibilities may seem overwhelming. However, the most important thing to remember is that you don’t have to do it all at once. You can start by evaluating your menu and selecting a handful of your most popular items that travel well. Paring down your menu and creating one specifically for delivery will help reduce complexity and set your delivery efforts up for success.

Next, hire a couple of drivers — or bring back waiters, bartenders of bar-backs that you may have had to lay off after the pandemic hit — and ask them do what they do best–customer service; this time, it’s just on the road. You don’t have to have an entire fleet up and running at the start, but make sure to keep a close eye on how it grows so you can be prepared to meet demand.

Finally, get the word out about your delivery offerings in whatever way possible. Publish it on social media, send emails to your subscriber list, and hand out fliers to your in-house diners. Creating awareness and staying top of mind is how you ensure that the next time someone wants a meal delivered to their home or business, they think of you.

Bring Delivery In House With GetSwift

The prospect of launching in-house delivery, including hiring your own drivers, can be daunting. But getting started is actually much faster and much easier than you think. Your team will be able to get the hang of it pretty quickly — just listen to our customers — and the rewards of going in-house, for your culture, morale, and bottom line, are too big to pass up. Interested in getting started with a free one-month trial? Contact a member of our team today to learn how we can help.


Photo: Norma Mortenson from Pexels

GetSwift Helping Restaurants Deliver Free Meals to Florida Seniors and Disabled Adults

GetSwift Helping Restaurants Deliver Free Meals to Florida Seniors and Disabled Adults

by | Apr 15, 2020 | Covid-19, Delivery software, Food, Restaurant Industry

During Covid-19, with food banks overwhelmed by high demand and seniors and those with underlying conditions told to stay home to protect themselves, there’s a huge need to deliver warm meals across the country. A pilot program in Florida called Meals of Love–of restaurants, government agencies and nonprofits–is stepping to the plate, literally.

Coordinated by the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) and Feed The Need Florida, local restaurants will deliver up to 1,000 meals every day to those in need across four Central Florida counties: Orange, Seminole, Brevard and Osceola. GetSwift’s delivery technology is there to help them all organize, track, and route the meals.  

Anyone over 60 and disabled adults between 18-59, can apply to get warm meals from a group of local restaurants right to their doors. Restaurants can apply to help, too, right here.

It’s no small effort to coordinate on the fly.

“This ambitious endeavor would not be possible without the technology GetSwift will provide to organize orders, schedule drivers, and provide logistics to ensure timely, accurate deliveries,” said Skip Kimpel, Chief Information Officer at 4R Restaurant Group, whose restaurants–4 Rivers Smokehouse–will be providing meals seven days a week.

As drivers come onboard, GetSwift’s delivery phone app gives them an easy way to see all their upcoming orders and saves them time with optimized routes. Restaurants can track all their orders, give ETAs and live-tracking to seniors waiting on their meals, and make sure the meals are on track to be delivered on time before any problems arise. 

The initiative is also important for the restaurants industry, which has taken a big hit as most restaurants have had to close on-premise dining and figure out how to survive with only delivery and pick-up. 

“The local restaurants are preparing meals and, by that way, there are dollars that are being infused into that restaurant industry, one that has been hit so hard,” Karla Radka of the Senior Resource Alliance, one of the nonprofits involved, told the local ABC station. 

The initiatives don’t stop there. Radka is also calling seniors to see if they have enough medication and food for 30 days, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 

All these groups, including us here at GetSwift, coming together–both the public and private sector–is the only way to start to meet the tremendous needs of Floridians and people across the country in the coming weeks and months. 

“Now is the time to stand united as we meet one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation,” said GetSwift’s CEO Bane Hunter.

Hammel of 4 Rivers Smokehouse shared a similar sentiment. “Now, more than ever, we need to take care of each other,” he said. 

If you’re a senior or disabled adult in Central Florida in need of nutritious meals, you can apply for Meals of Love here, and the Meals of Love team will be in touch via phone/email with more details. Restaurant operators can sign up to help right here. 

Photo by Tristan Le from Pexels