With 40% of restaurant revenue coming from online sales, digital channels must be on the menu. In the “Order To Eat Tracker®,” Pizza Guys’ Michael Morgan tells PYMNTS that digital channels are as important an ingredient to his business now as pizza dough or cheese.
It would be hard to find an industry more impacted by the pandemic than the restaurant industry.
Restrictions forced store closures and temporarily ended the possibility of sit-down dining, making delivery and takeout the only viable ordering methods. Even as rules eased, health concerns created the need for contactless payment options and more hygienic ordering methods. As a result, restaurants have had to embrace digital solutions, accelerating a trend that had been unfolding for years.
“Digital ordering channels are not an ‘option,’” Michael Morgan, vice president of operations at Pizza Guys, told PYMNTS in an interview. “They are the business now.”
Morgan said that since the pandemic began, online ordering has been the most popular ordering method by far, while consumers have likewise flocked to digital payment methods. As is the case for restaurants everywhere, this swift digital shift has redefined Pizza Guys’ business strategy.
“All those channels are part of your business just as much as the pizza dough or cheese,” Morgan explained.
The Many Flavors of Online Ordering
Consumers interested in ordering from Pizza Guys have many options. If they prefer traditional methods, they can walk into the store and place their orders with a Pizza Guys employee behind the counter. They can also place their orders over the phone. Although these methods are still offered, they both have become significantly less popular in the past few years, especially during the pandemic, Morgan said. Instead, digital ordering has skyrocketed.
“So currently our No. 1 platform that people are ordering from is online,” he said. “And that’s really where most of our focus is.”
Pizza Guys supports a variety of online ordering channels. The most popular route is to place an order directly through Pizza Guys’ website, either for delivery or takeout. The restaurant chain has its own delivery capabilities, so it can receive and fulfill these orders without needing to rely on a third-party company. Given how popular third-party food and delivery apps such as DoorDash or Uber Eats are, however, Morgan explained that Pizza Guys allows customers to order this way too.
He commended these apps for their customer-focused approach, noting that these platforms helped drive consumers to online ordering methods.
“The increase in digital ordering has been pushed by the third-party platforms like the DoorDashes of the world,” he said. “And then they’ve invested many millions of dollars in their technology. They’ve exposed and gotten many, many customers to use these platforms, and they’ve been very customer-centric, which is good.”
The Importance of Payment Choice
Just as Pizza Guys presents customers with a variety of ordering options, it provides many payment pathways as well. On the traditional front, customers can pay with debit and credit cards. While customers can also still pay with cash, they hardly do. Less cash means more card use, so merchants are paying more in interchange fees, which can negatively impact restaurants.
“We are getting almost no cash coming into the store, which is great for a lot of reasons, but some of it is not great,” Morgan explained. “[Running a restaurant is] a nickel-and-dime business, and that money [lost to interchange fees] matters.”
Nonetheless, it is important for restaurants to offer customers the payment methods they want. Most of Pizza Guys’ customers pay online with a debit or credit card that they have saved on the restaurant’s website. Customers can make an account on the Pizza Guys website and save their payment information, with the card details being tokenized, so future orders can be quick and convenient — as well as secure. With such a system, customers can order and pay with just a few clicks.
Responding to the Pandemic
The pandemic spurred widespread interest in contactless payments, so Pizza Guys responded by enabling support for options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay as well as contactless, tap-and-pay physical cards. Morgan noted use of these contactless methods shot up during this time.
Pizza Guys also changed its payment options for people ordering takeout online. Previously, takeout customers had to pay in-store when they came to pick up their meals, but as Pizza Guys expanded its curbside pickup options and tried to limit unnecessary health risks, it made sense to streamline the payment process. Now customers can pay online in advance, then pick up their food at the restaurant. The number of customers paying this way drastically increased during the pandemic.
Morgan said he believes that, pandemic or not, customers will desire any payment method that is customer-centric, provides greater speed and reduces friction during the transaction process. The same holds true for ordering. Taken together, these factors have made digital solutions an essential ingredient to restaurants of all varieties.
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