Questionnaire: Should You Add Delivery Services to Your Restaurant?

Delivery services aren’t really considered a luxury among diners these days. As Warren Solochek of The NPD Group put it:

“Delivery has become a need to have and no longer a nice to have in the restaurant industry. Restaurants need delivery in today’s environment in order to gain and maintain share. It has become a consumer expectation.”

With restaurants seeing a 20% increase in sales from delivery over the last five years, you can see why restaurateurs are jumping on board the delivery services trend.

That said, delivery services won’t necessarily make sense for every single restaurant. It might be because of the type of cuisine served, the restaurant’s location, or just the additional costs of starting the new service. Before you start telling guests the exciting news about your delivery services, take this short questionnaire to determine whether or not it’s the smartest move for your business.

Questionnaire: Is Your Restaurant Ready for Delivery Services?

There are two key goals you want to achieve when adding delivery services to your restaurant’s repertoire:

• It should increase the convenience factor for your guests.
• It should open up a profitable new revenue stream for your business.

If those two conditions aren’t met, and neither you nor your guests are reaping the benefits, then your restaurant isn’t ready to add delivery services just yet.

In the questionnaire below, provide a “Yes” or “No” answer for each point. If you have 12 or more “Yes” responses at the end, then it’s time to take steps towards adding delivery services to your restaurant.

1. Do multiple guests asked for delivery services on a daily basis? This could be while dining in-house, through a comment card, or received as feedback online.
2. Is your restaurant located in a densely populated area? Even if you’re not in a major metropolitan area, places like college campuses and beach towns would suffice.
3. Is your type of cuisine uncommon in your area and, thus, won’t have much in the way of competition?
4. Does your restaurant serve food at breakfast or lunch? The NPD Group’s survey found that these mealtimes are growing much faster in demand than dinner.
5. Does your seating capacity struggle to handle all of the guests that want to dine in or lead your restaurant to have extremely long wait times?
6. Do you have a set of popular menu items that can quickly be prepared and travel well, even if delivered an hour later?
7. Can your kitchen handle the increase in orders, even during your busiest periods?
8. Do you have special packaging on hand to keep food fresh and at the proper temperature by the time of delivery?
9. If not, do you have room in your budget to purchase specially insulated containers as well as separate ones for hot and cold food?
10. Does the content management system for your website and your POS system have online ordering integration capabilities?
11. Do you have the time, money, and resources to implement the ordering system into your website or app?
12. If not, are you comfortable outsourcing the management of online orders and delivery services to a third party? If you’re unsure, read this story about third-party delivery services gone bad.
13. If handling delivery in-house, are you prepared to hire and train new staff to receive, package, and deliver orders on your behalf?
14. Can you afford to pay for extra insurance coverage when you manage your own delivery services? In the event that a driver gets into an accident or some other incident should take place outside your premises, your restaurant could be held liable for damages.
15. Will you develop a new workflow and corresponding documentation to ensure a consistently positive and high-quality experience between in-house and door-to-door dining?
16. In the case a customer wants to send back their order, is displeased with the delivery service, or receives the wrong food, can you provide a proper and timely response? In other words, can a driver reasonably get back to the residence or office without compromising the rest of the delivery schedule?
17. Do you have a feedback system to monitor for any online or offline activity surrounding your delivery services (both good and bad)? And do you have a plan for responding to feedback received?

A Word to the Wise

Delivery could be a great thing for your business, so long as it’s handled well and it’s well-received by guests.

But if your restaurant isn’t prepared for it, if the costs are too high, or if you’re nervous about trusting a third-party delivery service to comport themselves, then now is not the best time to start something new. That said, listen to your guests. If the demand is there, it may be worth it to get the ball rolling on this additional service and new revenue stream.