9 Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Online Ordering Platform

With nearly 1 in 5restaurant orders coming in digitally (via web, kiosk, or mobile app), the right online ordering technology is critical for restaurants seeking to operate efficiently at scale. If your platform isn't meeting the needs of digital-first guests, your sales will reflect it.

Offering online ordering directly is more profitable for your brand, rather than relying solely on a marketplace. More importantly, direct ordering means you retain control of your guest data.

While a bare-bones provider might suffice for a single location, restaurants often find these solutions don't meet their needs or the needs of their operations or guests as the brand grows.

Tasks that should take minutes, like updating the menu or location hours, require too much manual work or back-and-forth with a provider.

If you're seeing abandoned carts, refund requests, negative reviews, and overwhelmed team members, it's time to upgrade your tech stack.

Let's explore some of the telltale signs that your online ordering platform is no longer working for you.

1. You're seeing a high number of abandoned carts

Modern online ordering software should seamlessly move the guest through the ordering experience, so abandoned carts are a sign that your menu is too complex and difficult to navigate online. Salad and pizza brands, for example, often have unlimited combinations and modifiers-not to mention location-specific items, limited-time offers (LTOs), etc. The longer it takes for guests to build their carts, the higher the chance they'll abandon their order or settle for a smaller basket-and perhaps even not return.

2. You can't easily launch additional channels like catering or delivery

‍To diversify your revenue streams with catering-the fastest-growing sales channel in the industry-or a virtual brand, you need an online ordering platform that supports multiple sales channels. Without a unified system, you can expect to juggle dashboards, tablets, and reports

You should also have scalable options for delivery, whether that's creating a first-party system or operating a streamlined marketplace rather than managing each platform individually.

3. Lack of capacity management leads to operational issues

When your restaurant is busy, accurate lead times and throttling and capacity management strategies become crucial. If you can't control how and when orders hit your restaurant, operational inefficiency will create a domino effect on your business. Guests will cancel online orders or request refunds because their food isn't fresh. Delivery couriers will arrive too early or too late. Stressed-out employees will quit. And negative online reviews will hurt your brand's reputation.

4. Your guests have limited payment options

91% of consumers say a satisfying checkout experience significantly influences the likelihood of returning to a merchant. If your guests can't securely check out without a password, use their digital wallet, or pay with the card on file, you're leaving dollars on the table.

5. You need more flexibility with your platform

Your platform should allow for centralized control and oversight of all locations with location-specific user permissioning. Adding franchisees will be difficult without multiple levels of permissions and controls, different data views, and deep but navigable reporting capabilities.

You should also be able to push quick updates-like holiday hours or a limited-time offer on the menu-without opening a support ticket that has a multi-day response time. These self-service abilities help business flow smoothly.

6. As your business grows, so does the complexity in your pricing model

New or unknown fees can make budgeting a challenge as you add more restaurant locations and channels. If your brand aims to expand, you'll want simplified, scalable pricing to keep more profit.

7. You can't customize your tech stack

There are more options to add to your restaurant tech stack than ever before, from voice AI to loyalty programs. In the coming years, you'll reevaluate solutions, want to add new partners, and identify opportunities to differentiate guest experience. But without a customizable and fully integrated tech stack that makes it easy to work with partners, you'll be stuck.

8. Your guest data lives in silos

‍If your guest data is disjointed, stuck in legacy systems, or held hostage by a vendor, you're not getting a comprehensive view of your guest journey. And you can't leverage that intel across departments to make smarter business decisions, like discovering who your best guests are to introduce new items, and figure out which guests are ripe for winback campaigns. These strategies help grow your business with higher average check size and more frequent visits.

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9. Your platform goes down too often

Every minute your platform is offline is dollars lost for your restaurants-which can add up across multiple locations-and a hit to your reputation with your guests. A platform with high uptime and stability is essential for a growing restaurant brand.

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Ready to upgrade your online ordering platform?

When it comes to your restaurant tech stack, the cost of complacency can be extremely high. As your restaurant brand grows, so should your capabilities. And with the right system, growth doesn't have to be painful.

A restaurant-specific, enterprise-grade online ordering platform will enable you to

• Optimize your menu for faster checkout, including showcasing seasonal items and LTOs
• Increase basket size by offering personalized suggestions and relevant menu items/combinations to guests
• Maximize efficiency and sales with built-in capacity management tools, like AI-assisted order throttling, that integrate POS and KDS data
• Eliminate lead time guesswork, reduce courier wait time, ensure guests get the fresh food they paid for, and reduce the burden on team members during rushes
• Reduce cart abandonment and boost repeat orders with convenient payment options and a seamless, secure checkout process
• Collect more first-party data to better understand and serve guests, retain more revenue, and scale your business
• Set your marketing team up for success with all the guest insights necessary to turn first-time visitors into loyal brand advocates
• Easily add new sales channels, like catering and virtual concepts-and manage all orders from one dashboard
• Remain agile and choose the best tools to scale your business with hundreds of potential integrations
• Keep more profit as you grow with flat, subscription-style fees
• Attract more franchisees‍

Time for an upgrade? Schedule your free consultation with an Olo expert to discover what Olo's enterprise-grade solution can do for your restaurant.