TRENDING: An Inside Look At Applebee’s Mobile Order-Ahead Strategy

From QSRs to casual dining operations, restaurants are tapping into mobile ordering to capture busy customers with no time to dine in.

In the June Mobile Order-Ahead Tracker, PYMNTS explores how casual dining restaurants are balancing mobile ordering with table service, and are seeking to get ahead of changing consumer preferences. Plus, the latest on taking the chaos out of order pickup and more new developments in the space.

Around the Mobile Order-Ahead World

As QSRs recognize the need to roll out mobile ordering, restaurants are looking for ways to avoid long pickup lines or, worse yet, a disorderly scramble. That’s a problem that Apex Order Pick-Up Technologies – from Apex, a self-service automation provider – is hoping its new in-store order pickup lockers could solve.

Businesses are also seeing potential in using mobile ordering for far more than just to-go meals. BJ’s Wholesale Club, for one, is trialing a service in which customers can pre-order sliced deli meats and cheeses for pickup from a mobile app. The pilot service is currently offered at 19 Massachusetts store locations and two other locations in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, Dine Brands is seeing potential in using mobile order-ahead for customers who still want the restaurant experience. The company, which oversees IHOP (or, shall we say, IHOb) and Applebee’s, is testing and developing a service in which customers can order meals ahead to be ready to eat when they arrive to dine in.

To get the rest of the latest headlines, download the Tracker.

Applebee’s on Serving Steak, Ice Cream and Mobile Ordering

Growth in consumers’ demand for mobile ordering is even forcing casual dining establishments to reexamine how they can work to reach customers where they are and serve them how they want. In this month’s feature story, Scott Gladstone, vice president of strategy and development for Applebee’s, explains how the restaurant has been refining its order-for-pickup offering, including updates to food packaging, back office processes and extending service to a variety of new channels, ranging from in-car to voice ordering.

“Consumption patterns are changing [and] most restaurant concepts in casual dining are really pursuing to-go,” Gladstone said. “It’s where the customer is going.”

Find the full story in the Tracker.

About the Tracker

The Mobile Order-Ahead Tracker™ serves as a monthly framework for the space, providing coverage of the most recent newsand trends, along with a provider directory highlighting the key players contributing across the segments that comprise the mobile order-ahead ecosystem.