Square, Incentivio Team on Customizable Restaurant App Solution

Restaurant guest experience platform Incentivio has formed a partnership with Square that lets restaurant operators using Square for Restaurants access new digital tools that are integrated with their point-of-sale (POS) systems, according to a press release.

The goal of the partnership is to allow restaurants to offer native mobile apps — which now make up 50% of all first-party digital orders — access a suite of marketing tools with attribution tracking, and tap into an autonomous, machine learning (ML)-powered upsell engine.

“We’re pleased to be able to pair Incentivio’s next-generation digital guest experience platform with Square’s cutting-edge point-of-sale and payment services,” Incentivio Chief Operating Officer Sash Dias said in the release. “This will allow restaurant brands to continue to grow their digital business while maintaining healthy profit margins.”

The Boston-based company said in the release that its platform “combines online ordering, commission free delivery, native mobile apps, loyalty programs, and a complete suite of marketing tools to help restaurants thrive in the digital environment.”

The partnership with Square comes at a time of a rapid acceleration in online ordering. According to PYMNTS research, 58% of American consumers are ordering food online more than before the pandemic. Forty-eight percent say they are having online orders delivered more often, and another 46% say they are picking orders up at the restaurant more often.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean the end of sit-down dining, FAT Brands CEO Andy Wiederhorn told PYMNTS.

Read more: FAT Brands CEO Predicts the IoT Future of ResTech

“Brick-and-mortar locations are great in that you can experience the concept and its respective environment that makes it unique,” he said.

Wiederhorn added that consumers have gotten more comfortable going back to restaurants, as they missed the experience of dining out.

Data from PYMNTS’ Restaurant Readiness Index, done in collaboration with Paytronix, show that almost two-thirds (63%) of restaurant sales were generated through channels that involve interacting with the physical store, including indoor dining, outdoor seating, pickup and mobile order-ahead.