Fast food, fast users: is your app up to date?

The popularization of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops is consolidating a New habit among consumers: we now want to perform routine tasks without wasting the minimum amount of time.

Saving time on travel or waiting in lines, mobile devices have quickly gained consumer favor when ordering food for home delivery or paying restaurant bills with loyalty rewards programs.

Besides, The increased use of self-service devices has also reduced operating costs.By offering virtual alternatives for staying in touch, through portable devices or personal computers, the provider makes life easier for the consumer and at the same time increases the efficiency of the service it offers.

Digital purchasing process

According to a survey by Oracle, “More than half (51%) of millennials want the option to order delivery or takeout.” And in the fast-paced life of the city, every minute counts. Saving time in queues or feeling special at your favourite restaurant if they already know what you want to order seems to be the new trend..

For example, Starbucks expanded its mobile ordering and payment service so that customers could pre-order hot and cold drinks from home or work to avoid waiting in line to pick up their order. Or the Domino's Pizza app, which allows users to order food by setting up the “Easy Order” option. Once set up, it's as simple as opening the app and your favorite pizza will be ordered. If you want to cancel the order, the app will show you a 10-second countdown to do so.

Measure the level of satisfaction of your users

It is a reality that More than 90% of dissatisfied users do not complain: They simply choose to switch brands or never buy your product again. But just because they don't complain doesn't mean they aren't dissatisfied. The fact is that many of them believe that complaining will have no impact on the company.

But those who don't complain will most likely speak badly of your brand whenever they can. It's important to monitor this aspect, as Nearly 10% of those who complain are giving you free feedback and extremely valuable for improving your products and services.

In addition, it is very important that you know the expectations of your current customers. And luckily the mobile device is the perfect place to find this information: you can send “Push Notifications” with a short survey, for example. Or you could also send special offers, thank you messages or inspirational quotes that connect with your brand. Their response to these actions will give you vital information to improve.

Make everything simpler

He In-app purchasing process makes the payment experience extremely simple for usersThis is where an app makes shopping easier, as it only takes a few clicks on the smartphone screen to do so.

To give you an idea of how important it is to control and improve this process, you should know that according to Starbucks, mobile payments already represent more than 20% of all the company's sales in the United States. And that's despite the fact that 7 million payments are made every week in that country alone.

Streamline communication

A mobile app can do whatever the developer wants. However, what a business wants is to create an app that has the functionality they want and that also helps position their brand.

The more your app is used, the closer your users are to purchasing your product or service.Creating in-app campaigns to advertise your product or brand is an invaluable tool, even more so for companies that have different locations and want to promote different products in each of them.

Apps have much greater potential than mobile websites, although this does not mean that you should only have an app and not a website with a responsive design. Apps have features that you won't easily find on mobile sites like:

• Push notifications to communicate offers or news
• All user information, usage time, recurrence, navigation and other data obtained with the use of an app and can be used for specific campaigns
• If a user connects through a social network, you can learn more about him through that social network.

Do proximity marketing

More brands are trying to use the geolocation marketing to retain users. According to Matt Asay, vice president of Mobile at Adobe Platform Cloud,

“Mobile devices travel with the consumer and generate a lot of contextual information. All of this can be used to improve their experiences, changing not only how consumers interact with the world, but also with brands.”

Geolocation technology can be one of the most important aspects when designing a mobile brand strategyOnce consumers authorize this relationship, a wide range of possibilities opens up. For example, Van Leuween, an ice cream shop in New York, offers its users mobile payment options and uses this functionality to track their location. The app uses geolocation to detect when a user is near Van Leuween and entices them to come and shop at their store with special offers.

Some of the The benefits of geomarketing are having great segmentation power for free or at a very low cost.You can get to know your customers better, attract new customers or reward those who are more loyal.

Now that you know some of the hottest trends for fast food apps, do you know how to apply them to keep your app up to date?