The pandemic winds on, but restaurants see their fortunes improving – enough so that owners and operators are cautiously optimistic about the near-term future.
In the Restaurant Readiness Index, a PYMNTS and Paytronix collaboration, respondents said that technology plays a role in helping give a tailwind to those revenues. Simply put, the more digital the restaurant was and is – where orders could be placed online via app or aggregator – the more likely they’d see top-line growth above pre-pandemic levels.
It stands to reason, then, that the inverse remains true – those firms with less “digital presence” have seen less torque for their sales. As much as 67% of restaurants’ sales are generated through these channels.
The Most Common Features
Drilling down a bit, the digital features that are most common, most prized and embraced by the consumers themselves — among the best, middle and even “lower” performing restaurants — include the ability to order using a mobile app, the ability to pay with digital wallets, and the availability of loyalty and rewards programs.
A unified approach seems to be in order: As the study found, top performers within the restaurant sector were able to boost their overall innovation readiness by keeping their loyalty programs intact, but also through the concurrent expansion of their digital ordering capabilities.