Why complement your existing business with a virtual brand?

Virtual brands are a relatively new concept driven by the growth of the delivery market. As the name suggests, they don’t exist as a bricks-and-mortar food business: instead your customers only order from them online.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to set up a ‘dark kitchen’ operation – more and more existing restaurants, cafes and food businesses are creating a second virtual brand whose food is created and produced in the kitchens of the original establishment.

In this way your single restaurant, café, pub or pizzeria can now be home to multiple brands. But what’s the benefit of creating an additional virtual brand when you’ve already invested time and effort in building up your existing one?

There are several good reasons, such as the ability to differentiate your virtual brand offering from your original brand; the chance to increase your customer reach through a second or even third brand aimed at different sectors of the market; and the opportunity to trial new dishes without impacting your main menu offering. 

Restaurateur and chef Mark Normoyle of Luna’s Food & Wine Bar in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St Kilda has just launched a virtual brand called St Kilda Beach Pizzeria. “We have a wood fired oven at Luna’s and we do amazing pizzas, but we’re not really known for home delivery or takeaway pizza, so we decided to create a virtual brand using only our pizza menu. We’ve set up a website and designed a logo for St Kilda Beach Pizzeria as purely an online operation. It’s a great way to put our food out there and tap into the local market through a new name and style.”

While the short-term goal in Mark’s case was to keep staff engaged during the latest Melbourne lockdown, there are other key benefits.

“Having a separate brand for delivery and takeaway stops our core brand from being watered down. It’s also an important consideration that you don’t have the same control over home delivered food as you do over food served in house, especially when you’re using third party order platforms. So it’s a good idea to keep your restaurant brand separate.”

Having launched one virtual brand, Mark is now looking at another aimed at the breakfast-brunch trade. “St Kilda Beach Pizzeria is more about lunch and dinner, but there’s potential for a virtual brand for our croissants, toasties and coffees. That way we can use our existing ingredients without much in the way of extra labour and ensure we’re maximising our revenue. All the data I’m seeing shows online ordering has really picked up in the last 12 months and it isn’t going to decrease, so it’s more important than ever to have a presence in that space.”

CENTRALISED DATA ACCESS
‘Next generation’ restaurant management systems are able to supply a comprehensive overview of all your customers’ purchases via dine-in, online order and home delivery options – even if you use third party order platforms

Insights
AI and how it can work for you

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the leading technical innovations predicted to have a major impact on the foodservice sector over the next decade. Major QSR chains in the US are already utilising AI, and as the technology gets more affordable its use will likely become more widespread.

Key benefits of AI for your business include order taking, food delivery and data gathering and analysis to improve your customers’ dining experience. One of the better known AI technologies is Chatbots – these AI-powered computer applications are designed to simulate person to person interaction, mimicking human conversation usually via SMS texting or a Messenger app. Alexa and Google Home are two well-known examples of voice chatbots which interact with people.

Chatbots are typically integrated with social media messenger systems where they’ve proven to be a big success – they can also be integrated within your website’s ordering or reservation booking system. As Chatbots can handle multiple interactions at once, customers no longer need to be kept waiting to make a booking or place an order as is the case when communicating with a human over the phone. This means more orders and more bookings for your business.

Other ways Chatbots can help your business include promoting new deals and offers to customers – machine learning can allow chatbots to identify your regular customers and entice them back via automated offers delivered via SMS, email and Messenger. They can also encourage customers to leave positive feedback on social media and be integrated with your POS system to make payment seamless.

Smart kiosks is another AI technology that’s set to expand exponentially – these digitized menu boards drive product recommendations based on customer preference and even weather changes. KFC China is reportedly using facial recognition technology to predict customers’ likely menu choices based on their estimated age and mood.

 While these technologies are still in their relative infancy, they’re already being employed by more and more switched-on foodservice professionals – not just the big players in the business. It’s worth considering how these might work for you, not just in marketing terms but also more generally in ensuring greater customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Perfect Solutions
How contactless order and payment innovations can boost your operational efficiency

The shift towards contactless payment methods that we’ve seen over the past year is clearly here to stay, as more and more foodservice professionals recognise their value in making transactions faster and more convenient for customers and staff alike.

QR codes are back in a big way, simply because they’re so easy to generate, scan and use – and can be used for customers to access menus and place orders as well as pay for their meals. The big benefit of QR codes is you don’t need a special app for them and they can be generated online with relative use.

Mobile food payment channels via restaurant apps have also experienced a boost in demand, with survey data from June/July last year finding that 50 per cent of consumers were already using mobile apps “more often or much more often”, up from 42 per cent in the previous quarter. This reflects not only the rise in contactless payment but also the increase in pickup/delivery that has been a big part of the past 12 months.

In fact major US market research firm Gartner is already predicting that by 2024, as much as 80 per cent of ordering, payment and checkout services will be contactless.

These technologies are set to bring a big boost to your business’ operational efficiency. Think about it this way: the faster you can turn around orders and complete payment, the more covers you’ll have per service period, and the more product you can sell. In other words, you can boost your profit by increasing your table turnover thanks to the time you save taking orders and payments.

Another benefit of contactless ordering and payment that you might not have considered is that it can actually lead to increased order sizes. This works on the well-known e-commerce principle of “suggested for you” add-ons – your order system can suggest to your customer the pairing of food with particular beverages, the benefit of adding complementary side dishes and so on, helping to drive up the average order.

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