7 Tips for Curbside Pickup for Restaurants

The rise of curbside pickup has been one of the greatest changes in the restaurant industry lately. A study reveals a 22% increase in using curbside pickup for restaurants from April 2020 to January 2021. Although setting your own curbside pickup operation system isn’t complicated, still, there are several strategies to increase its efficiency and success. Below are seven tips to apply.

1. Create a separate menu

When you dedicate a smaller menu for curbside pickup, your kitchen operations will run more smoothly. As you keep your menu small, stick to the best-seller dishes and make sure they hold up well through long drives. You can also get more creative by offering ready-to-cook meals or family packs to cater to a wide range of customers.

2. Select the right packaging

A major factor in the success of curbside pickup for restaurants is having the food packed in appropriate containers; safely and securely. Bottom line is to make sure hot, cold, and liquid items are all kept intact in their containers at the right temperature. Also, include the basic utensils as many customers may want to eat in their car right away.

3. Get an online ordering system

The easiest way to set up a curbside pickup for restaurants and get customers to actually order is to implement an online ordering system. Surely, you can take curbside pickup orders over the phone, but it’s limiting, time-consuming, and error-prone. A platform like Taker streams all your online orders into your POS so you can begin preparing orders promptly.

4. Have dedicated curbside pickup spots

If your restaurant has a parking lot, it is easy to create a dedicated spot for pickup. If this is not the case for you, for maybe your restaurant is located in a busy neighborhood where there is no parking lot, you may want to get a bit creative. Request permission from local authorities to set up a temporary curbside pickup in front of your restaurant or a permanent one on a nearby street.

5. Provide clear pickup instructions

The goal of curbside pickup for restaurants is to make it easier for customers to get their orders. Customers should know how to place an order on your website or app to be picked up from a curbside. Give your customers a timing estimate of when it shall be ready. To let you know they’ve arrived, customers may text or call your restaurant where a staff member pops the order in their vehicle’s trunk. To minimize contact even further, customers can pay online while ordering.

6. Train staff for curbside pickup

Curbside pickup for restaurants requires the collaboration between kitchen staff and front-of-house staff from monitoring the ordering system all the way to coordinating the handoff of orders. Follow proper food safety and sanitization, limit food handling, provide staff with face masks, gloves, and hand sanitizers while enforcing regular handwashing and surface disinfection.

7. Promote your curbside pickup service The pandemic has accelerated curbside pickup for restaurants which means there is competition in this department. Once all the work is done, and you’ve set up a great curbside pickup operation, it’s time for everyone to know about it. Social media campaigns, online profiles, email newsletters, and in-store signage are all ways to promote your curbside pickup service.

How to Win With Curbside Pickup for Restaurants in Two Steps

In the near past, customers had the luxury to wander around picking the restaurant of their choice. They would get into a restaurant and order whatever they like, no rush, nothing to worry about. Now that Covid has forced us into social distancing, customers want to get their food with minimal contact. Hence, curbside pickup for restaurants.

Below we discuss two ways to win customer experience with curbside pickup.

Why go for curbside pickup?

The current health situation forces restaurant owners to adapt in terms of serving customers to the full and keeping their businesses running. Curbside pickup for restaurants is a feature that has been adopted by a growing number of restaurant owners. All that a customer has to do is place an order online- through a website or application (check out Taker ) – and pick it up while staying safe in their vehicle.

A study shows that online ordering and curbside pickup for restaurants have grown an 87% over a year. It is believed that the trend will last long even after the pandemic has retreated. A positive customer experience still matters, however, even though curbside pickup is a win-win situation.

How to focus on customer experience?

Although many businesses are merely trying to survive, customer experience is crucial when it comes to curbside pickup for restaurants.

1. Keep things normal

In times of uncertainty, the best thing a restaurant business can do is to maintain normalcy. Surely, things have changed, but if you’re known for your fast service, for instance, keep it up no matter what the challenges are. Curbside pickup for restaurants- though relatively new to some customers- is an option that could benefit from your fast service. Everyone will be happy. Your customers will feel nothing has changed, and the only change you did was for the best which is for your customers to pick up the food themselves.

As you maintain normalcy, make sure you’re flexible enough to adapt to changes. Just like any in-house staff, employees responsible for curbside pickup for restaurants should adhere to all the precautionary and hygiene measures.

2. Strategize logistics

The logistical undertaking of curbside pickup for restaurants is massive. Many restaurants are experienced in the process, but many others are fairly new to it. To create a consistent logistical experience, customers should know how to order and what to do to pick up their order. Always make sure there is clear communication after the order is placed and good signage at the pickup spot. Also, be realistic when it comes to order preparation time, especially with stricter safety. If an order will take longer, let the customer know rather than wait.

To conclude, curbside pickup for restaurants isn’t a big deal only if you’re aware of worldwide changes and customer priorities.

7 Benefits of Curbside Pickup for Restaurants

Curbside pickup for restaurants is not a new concept. When you think of it, it is a kind of variation of BOPIS (Buy Online, Pickup In-Store). However, with the rise of the pandemic, customers opted for collecting orders from curbsides, for even entering a closed area like a restaurant for a few minutes may pose a Covid threat.

Below are seven benefits of curbside pickup for restaurants and why it is the right thing to do.

1. Reduced delivery costs

A win-win situation where customers don’t have to pay a full-delivery fee- if not any- and where your restaurant lowers/cancels its delivery fee, increases its profit and offers more discounts for promotional purposes. You may even give an extra 10% discount for customers who go for your curbside pickup service.

2. Increased overall sales

Curbside pickup for restaurants shows an average growth of 23% in sales! With such an increase in overall sales, restaurant chains will inevitably grow as well. Even with a small percent of your customers favoring curbside pickup, the trend is guaranteed to be taken up by many more in the future.

3. Easier for customers

Curbside pickup service allows customers to order what they want, when they want it, and how they wish to get it. Customers are in charge of the process as they drop by the curbside within a set timeframe to collect their orders themselves. The easier curbside pickup for restaurants is, the more likely customers will keep coming back.

4. Strengthened brand image

Adopting a curbside pickup option means your restaurant brand image is being customer-centric. It means your brand caters to its customers’ needs in terms of what they want and the way they want to collect it. With curbside pickup for restaurants, customers have more options and flexibility.

5. More flexible for customers

Flexibility is important to many customers. Imagine many of your customers live in apartments or super busy areas where doorstep deliveries can be much of a hassle. Curbside pickup for restaurants offers customers flexibility that could improve their customer experience. You may still apply the rules, policies, and standards that hold your restaurant business together, yet still, be flexible.

6. Up-to-dateness

The restaurant business is gaining momentum, especially with lockdown lifting. You’ll find that curbside pickup for restaurants is being adopted by many of your competitors. Whatever you do, you don’t want your restaurant to fail at adapting to the latest trends in the business. If you lag, you may, unfortunately, lose customers especially the younger segment.

7. Boosted customer loyalty

Even though customers like to often try new diners, still a satisfying customer experience is reason enough to bring back a loyal customer to your restaurant. Show flexibility and make your dining, takeout, and curbside pickup a positive experience, then you’ll become a winner. Check out Taker for an online ordering system with a curbside pickup feature.

Taker Launches Curbside Pickup to Help Restaurants & Coffee Shops Provide Contactless Delivery

The concept of “In-store Pickup” has been around for a while. Embraced mostly by e-commerce businesses to encourage online shoppers to visit their stores, this click-and-collect purchase option seemed to have been the perfect win-win situation.

Yet, with the coronavirus pandemic on the rise, a more contactless pickup solution became in demand, and here’s when “Curbside Pickup” has come to the rescue.

Just as is the case with in-store pickup, curbside pickup involves making a purchase online, but instead of entering the store to pick-up the purchase, the customer picks it up without stepping out of their car.

Utilizing on Curbside Pickup for Taker Clients

Knowing that an efficient curbside pickup is vital to restaurant & coffee shops success – especially under the current circumstance – Taker has launched the new feature to support new ways of safe transactions between restaurants & coffee shops and their customers.

The feature is created to promote social distancing and minimize the contact with restaurant staff.

This happens through:

Online placement of orders to reduce crowds in restaurants and coffee shops premises.
Curbside pickup of orders to reduce person-to-person contact.

How does Taker Curbside Pickup work?

Taker Curbside Pickup service is available on the application and website of the restaurant or coffee shop.

Here’s an overview of what a Taker Curbside Pickup experience may look like for restaurants & coffee shops:

Customers log into the website or application, then place an order and select adequate payment method.
For a delivery method, customers select “Curbside Pickup”.
Customers choose a convenient curbside pickup point (from a provided list of locations).
Once the order is confirmed, the staff gets notified to have time to prepare the order.
When the customer arrives at the curbside pickup point, a notification is sent to the staff to deliver the order.
A restaurant employee hands off the order to the customer while adhering to physical distancing measures, as the customer remains in their car.

Who benefits from Taker Curbside Pickup feature?

According to Technomic’s 2020 Delivery and Takeout Consumer Trend Report, 66% of consumers anticipate continuing to use curbside pickups even after dine-in services resume.

So, if the Curbside Pickup feature makes the ordering experiences easy for customers, restaurants & coffee shops are to widely benefit from the trend.

This is how they can use the Taker Curbside Pickup feature to build customer loyalty:

Keeping customers as well as restaurant staff safe.
Less spread of germs even after the pandemic is over.
Ensuring order accuracy by tracking order details.
Catering to on-the-go-customers.
Getting food out faster and eliminating waiting time for customers.
Fewer crowds in restaurants and more orders out.

Taker is at the forefront of revolutionizing the online Food & Beverage (F&B) industry, a category that is rapidly developing and is worth billions of dollars globally. It is the most advanced management platform for restaurants of any size who want to open their online branch and scale up customer orders. The innovative services that Taker provides include taking everything related to creating a website and mobile application for restaurants.

Restaurants & coffee shops that sign up with Taker can get their own branded ordering channels almost instantly. Furthermore, Taker also integrates its system with the restaurant POS systems and payment gateways and any additional add-on services. These significant features play a major role to improve efficiency, streamline the internal operations inside the kitchen and manage the increased volume of orders.