Restaurant Websites Suck.

Yeah, I said what I said.

We're spending TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars on crafting the perfect branding for our websites, but to what end?

UX experts are brought in, photographers and videographers are hired. SEO experts are consulted. But for what?

To use our online ordering. The AIs can't agree on what the percentage is, but what they can agree on is that it's always well north of 50%. What a great, immediate ROI on our website spend, right?

It should be.

If you think about how much time we spend perfecting the website experience, what percentage of that time is spent in strategizing the customer journey after they're handed off to our online ordering menu?

I'm gonna guess that it's close to zero.

It's like our customers get dumped on the doorstep of online ordering and then are told "May the odds be ever in your favor" and we leave them there to fend for themselves.

There needs to be more conversation around the problems and opportunities that are unique to restaurant online ordering because there's just not that much talk about it, yet.

Wanna craft a restaurant website?

Perfect. There's a handful of videos online about that.

Need to create a button in your POS?

Absolutely! We've got some videos over here for you.

Restaurant online ordering best practices?

[crickets] I mean... we've got SO MANY videos on e-commerce. Won't that work?

NO. No, it will not.

I think we can agree that we're doing restaurants a disservice if we're comparing online ordering to "e-commerce". And because of that, we need to start establishing best practices for restaurant online ordering.

So. that's what I'm doing here. I'm establishing a series of videos to discuss best practices for restaurant online ordering.

You can find the first video on YouTube, here.

We'll focus mot of our efforts on To Go. We'll touch on catering, but mostly through the lens of refining To Go. If you're looking for help with catering, I'd recommend joining CaterLinked. There are a lot of good resources from some very talented professionals in the community.

Anywho. Sign up for this newsletter on LinkedIn or on our website in order to hear first when our videos drop.

Now, you might be saying, "Hey Crystina! We don't have time to build/optimize/manage our restaurant online ordering."

GOOD NEWS! I do. Feel free to reach out about what I can pick up for you. I do offer deep discounts to Independent Restaurants but can only work with one at a time.

I'll be spending some time in October reviewing agreements that need renewing. If you'd like to chat about fractional or advisory positions, let's chat sooner rather than later so I'll have the space to accommodate your needs.