Quick-service restaurants (QSRs) have learned to adapt quickly during the pandemic, with many pivoting to contactless ordering and payment tools to keep their customers safe and their operations afloat. As a result, nearly 80% of restaurants’ ordering, checkout and payment services are expected to be entirely contactless by 2024. Mobile payments and ordering tools have been a crucial part of this trend, and restaurants are experimenting with in-app functionalities and features that can help customers take their digital habits with them even as they head back into brick-and-mortar locations.
In the February edition of the Order To Eat Tracker®, PYMNTS explores the latest news and trends in the order to eat space, including how consumers’ digital expectations are driving restaurants to enhance their payment and ordering experiences. It also examines how QSRs are turning to innovations such as QR codes, self-service in-store kiosks and mobile-oriented loyalty programs to keep customers coming back.
Around the Order to Eat Space
Consumers’ newfound appreciation for convenience has been a potent driving force behind restaurants’ decisions to continue investing in delivery service. One recent report found that the global food delivery market reached $150 billion in 2021, more than triple the amount from 2017. The market more than doubled in the United States during the same period, indicating that consumers will increasingly seek out such services in the years ahead.
Many restaurants are examining how best to tailor their physical operations to fit this new digital normal. Texas-based chicken chain Wingstop, for example, recently introduced a wholly digitized “restaurant of the future” that reduces human contact and aims to optimize both front- and back-of-house operations. The chain’s goal is to make the restaurant cashless and eventually rely on customers ordering through solely electronic means.
For more on these stories, visit the Tracker’s News and Trends section.
Sonic on Using Ordering, Payment Technology to Create Long-Lasting Customer Loyalty
It has become more important than ever for QSRs and fast casual restaurants to meet customers’ needs across all channels as their dining and payment patterns shift. New technologies can enable restaurants to connect safely and seamlessly with consumers online, in person and everywhere in between — so long as restaurants adopt the tools that best match their customers’ needs for personalization and loyalty.
In this month’s Feature Story, Kim Lewis, vice president of integrated marketing communications for fast-casual chain Sonic, discusses why it is more important than ever for QSRs and fast casual restaurants to use digital features and tools to strengthen their relationship with their customers.
PYMNTS Intelligence: New Technologies Help Drive Customer Loyalty and Trust at Casual Dining Chains and QSRs
The pandemic has forever changed customers’ restaurant ordering and payment habits, even as many begin to head back into eateries’ dining rooms. QSRs are responding by rolling out features such as mobile-based contactless payments and QR code menus, but they must also be sure the technologies they invest in will satisfy their customer bases, rather than alienate them.
This month’s PYMNTS Intelligence examines how QSRs and casual dining chains use digital strategies to change both the on-premises and off-premises dining experience and ultimately drive customer loyalty.
About the Tracker
The Order To Eat Tracker®, a PYMNTS and Paytronix collaboration, examines the latest trends and developments in consumers’ digital- and mobile-first payment and ordering habits in the restaurant space.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
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