Menu Technologies

With diners returning to restaurants, the dramatic change in their behaviors and in the restaurant industry, brought by the pandemic is not likely to disappear. During the entire year restaurants tried to shift their business to off-premise, relying on delivery, take out, curbside pickup, as well as drive-thru to compensate for decline and even complete loss of on-premise sales. The forward looking brands continue to have a strong focus on off-premise with their delivery optimization and boosting digital sales, at the same time investing into superb digital guest experiences.

As demand for online food ordering intensifies, more and more restaurants rely on third-party delivery marketplaces to carry out delivery. Although delivery marketplaces (DMs) have been a lifesaver for many restaurant chains during the repeated lockdowns, restaurants have also faced different operating challenges, including lower margins and decreased efficiency. A particular obstacle relates to the lack of point-of-sale (POS) system integrations for orders received from such external ordering channels. This means that the staff needs to manually enter the orders into their system, reading from a DM tablet, which consumes their time and leads to errors. Furthermore, guest order data is not with restaurants and as such weakens their potential for personalized engagement and loyalty programs, which has compelled them to look for ways to get back control.

The current situation puts restaurants at unease, which is why on the one hand, they are striving to offer their own ordering channels, while on the other, they are looking to tap into emerging and entirely new external order interfaces, such as ordering with Google and social & conversational platforms. As restaurants are adding more of these external ordering interfaces through WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Yelp, it becomes an operational nightmare to manage a fast-growing number of ordering channels, let alone ensuring smooth and fully controlled delivery. We talked with Karl and Marlon Koch on how their company MENU Technologies is helping restaurants to find the solution.

Connecting Every Ordering Channel

With its mission to enable eCommerce and digital transformation of restaurants, MENU Technologies has supported its customers even before the pandemic broke out and with particular dedication under the new circumstances. MENU’s omnichannel digital restaurant solution has gained trust from the most demanding global restaurant chains, including Burger King, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and many others, driving innovation together and serving thousands of restaurants across the globe. At the same time, MENU’s technology is apt for small restaurant chains for handling all their self-ordering, delivery, and guest loyalty and engagement needs. In addition to building branded ordering apps, MENU has been solving restaurant “channel jungle problem” with MENU Link. It facilitates integration with any external ordering interface, such as ordering with Google Search, Google Maps, or Google Assistant, and orders coming from delivery marketplaces or social & conversational media. This way, restaurants can connect all the dots with ease and embrace third-party ordering as additional revenue sources quickly and securely.

“The integration via MENU Link ensures that all ordering channels, direct and third-party, can be managed from one central platform. Also, all orders are automatically injected to the POS, so there is no need to have multiple tablets,” says Marlon Koch, Co-Founder and CPO of MENU Technologies. As a part of the wider integrated digital ecosystem, MENU Link ensures data consistency across all ordering interfaces and order accuracy to enable smooth operations. MENU also automates delivery as part of the same MENU platform. Allowing delivery orders from all third-party ordering channels to be automatically injected into the POS system and assigned to the most optimal restaurant drivers and/or delivery service providers (DSPs) for fulfilment.

Additionally, MENU Link allows automatic synchronization of all restaurant data on third party ordering channels: delivery marketplaces such as UberEats, Takeaway, Deliveroo, FoodPanda, Rappi and others, ordering via Google and social and conversational media. This way restaurants can update their menus and current pricing on any external channel in real-time from their central backend. It also allows restaurants to manage and give preference to certain ordering channels, including special offers with differentiated pricing. For example, restaurants can favor their own branded channel applications and build direct relationships with their customers.

Managing All Things Delivery

With ordering being one piece of the puzzle, MENU has restaurants also covered when it comes to order fulfilment. With food consumers expecting speed and accuracy, restaurants can rely on MENU’s complete delivery and dispatching suite that can handle everything around delivery orders, no matter where they originate from - restaurant-own branded ordering applications or external ordering channels.

The integrated omnichannel ecosystem ensures that delivery orders are not only properly injected into the POS system for production but also automatically dispatched to the most optimal driver for order fulfilment. Itenables customers to track the delivery drivers and engage with them, which is especially helpful for delivery locations that lack a specific address. Moreover, the ecosystem empowers restaurants with valuable statistics regarding delivery times and fleet occupancy to optimize their delivery operations.

What is especially important for restaurants is that MENU Dispatch can define delivery areas and calculate a variety of delivery fee methods with the managed menu, prices, and delivery area information, seamlessly feeding into the order and check-out process to handle any payment method.

Restaurants can manage delivery through their own drivers or by engaging a third-party fleet, as MENU’s platform is already connected to hundreds of thousands of third-party delivery drivers through integrations into a fast-growing number of DSPs offering last-mile delivery. Another advantage is automatic assignment of delivery orders to own drivers - thanks to an intelligent algorithm that avoids manual handling while optimizing route planning. Moreover, MENU Dispatch assigns orders to third-party fleets if none of the restaurantdrivers is available or if a restaurant doesn’t operate its own driver fleet. Restaurants can also benefit from the possibility to configure rules so that delivery orders are assigned to the most optimal DSP based on multiple parameters, such as time, service quality and fees.

Unlocking the Real Value with MENU

Apart from integrations with external ordering channels via MENU Link and delivery & dispatch automation, MENU’s primary benefit for restaurants is that it offers an all- in-one solution covering the entire customer’s journey. Allowing restaurants to collect customer-related data from all customer touchpoints into one data platform, MENU also enables them to automate guest engagement based on CRM segmentation and run targeted loyalty and rewards programs as well as effective discount management.

MENU Loyalty allows restaurants to build their own successful loyalty program. Restaurants can also manage complex reward scenarios including multipliers on certain days, timeframes, order types, product categories. Loyalty points can be collected and rewards can be redeemed on all branded ordering channels, such as web, mobile and kiosk apps, or even a POS system.

With MENU Loyalty, restaurants can configure and tailor campaigns and rewards to target a certain segment of their user audience. They can (re)engage theircustomers through personalized offers and event-based rewards so that they return and increase spending on each visit. With reward tiers, restaurants can group rewards into unlockable tiers and use gamification to encourage customers to reach higher tiers. So-called “progressive earning” means the more a customer spends, the more they can be rewarded in points.

MENU Loyalty also lets restaurant customers refer others to the app and benefit from the referral. Loyalty program overview and rewards status are accessible to restaurant customers at any time in their personal loyalty dashboard.

Closely listening to the restaurants and their guests’ needs and expectations, MENU has been dedicated to developing the most advanced digital restaurant platformavailable worldwide, that seamlessly handles any digital order and enables customer engagement. MENU’s solutions have been built for scalable global roll-outs, always bearing in mind different requirements, from market specifics to languages and payments. Thus, MENU integrates with more than 100 third-party platforms, including POS systems, payment processors and online payment methods, delivery marketplaces, delivery service providers (DSPs) and analytics, customer data, attribution and automated marketing platforms, location and tracking services, fraud prevention solutions and more.

To expand on the capabilities of the MENU platform, Karl Heinz Koch, CEO of MENU Technologies throws light on dean&david, a fast-casual food chain with stores in Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Austria and Qatar. MENU provides the complete digital ordering ecosystem to dean&david, including branded order channel applications: mobile, web, and kiosk. Recently the rising demand for convenience made it crucial for dean&david to start implementing MENU Link for efficient and seamless management of external ordering channels, such as Google and several delivery marketplaces. The deployment of MENU Delivery&Dispatch suite is aimed to extend the capabilities of dean&david even further as they can automatically assign delivery orders for fulfilment to own or external delivery drivers. MENU’s digital ordering ecosystem enables dean&david to reduce errors and streamline restaurant operations as all orders are automatically injected into the POS system. Moreover, MENU is currently working with dean&david in implementing integrated incentive and loyalty programs to personalise orders for individually tailored guest engagement. MENU’s integrated ecosystem enables complete transparency when it comes to operational efficiency and personalizing customer ordering data. Recently MENU and dean&david cooperation was awarded Top App Award 2021 by The German Society for Consumer Studies (DtGV). The app of dean&david powered by MENU’s technology received the highest ranking and 1st place among the restaurant apps. A total of 774 apps from different industries were considered for the award by using a detailed survey and 145,000 customer opinions.

All Eyes on a Promising Future

MENU is committed to innovating and building out what is already the most advanced and integrated digital restaurant ecosystem. Marlon asserts, “Our company value is dependent on the success of our restaurant customers, which is why our interests are completely aligned with theirs. Importantly, MENU views restaurants as long-term partners and continuously pushes the boundaries of innovation for enhancement of the guest experience.”

The company’s highly experienced team of experts and more than 100 software developers create and update new modules in close cooperation with MENU’s customers to enrich the experience with artificial intelligence, and integrate modules for tailored guest engagement. MENU is a truly global solution serving customers in almost every part of the world and committed to establishing a long-term partnership that delivers.