How the Pandemic Accelerated Restaurants' Digital Transformation

Blaze Pizza is a fast casual chain known for customization, with a choice of five doughs and 45 toppings. So when the pandemic hit, and customers couldn’t stand at the counter to make those selections, an unexpected error occurred frequently with online orders: Customers confused the chopped garlic with roasted garlic. That led to lots of angry customers. Blaze’s garlic mixup exemplifies the challenges restaurants faced in the early days of the pandemic when they were forced to pivot to entirely online ordering systems with tech stacks that weren’t built for such heavy, and nuanced, usage. Like so many restaurants, the pandemic forced Blaze to innovate. Overnight, restaurants had to accelerate implementation of their digital strategies so customers could seamlessly place pick-up and delivery orders via apps and online. Digital orders increased to 20% from 5% pre-pandemic, according to The National Restaurant Association. And once in-person dining returned, restaurants continued to use technology like QR codes for menus and a tab to click for curbside delivery. To address the garlic issue at Blaze Pizza, marketers are incorporating images of the toppings instead of written descriptions when the app relaunches in mid-August to avoid confusion. Bars and Restaurants Are Reopening, but Americans Still Want Their To-Go Cocktail Options “Actual images of the ingredients will help make it feel as close as possible to walking down the line in the restaurant,” Vincent Szwajkowski, Blaze’s CMO, added. Personalizing marketing messages A side effect of this digital growth is access to data. “The restaurant industry is seeing this treasure trove of first-party customer data that they've never had before,” Kevin Rice, CMO of the digital growth agency Hathway, told Adweek. “For many years, emails were batch and blast. It wasn't anything sophisticated because they didn't have first-party data.” That’s changing. With this new critical mass of data, marketers are creating highly personalized messages that tell customers about promotions on the items they order most, incentives for customers who haven’t ordered in a while and announcements about new products. Take Blaze's limited-time Blazin’ Hot Chicken Pizza, which was topped with ghost pepper chicken meatballs. The pizzas sold extremely well, so the meatballs were added as a standalone option. The marketing team targeted customers who frequently ordered the pizza with spicy sauce with an email campaign inviting them to try the ghost pepper chicken meatballs, figuring they’d be most interested in the new spicy addition. “It was wonderful to grow sales, but we actually got people who responded saying, ‘I'm so happy you told me about the meatballs because I didn’t know you offered them,’” Szwajkowski said. To Increase Deliveries, Pizza Hut UK Aims to Build an Esports Community Order online, eat outside Off-premise dining was already a growing trend before the pandemic, thanks to increasingly sophisticated technology that streamlined online ordering, but the pandemic supercharged it. In 2019, off-premise dining accounted for 60% of restaurant sales; today it’s just over 80%, according to The National Restaurant Association. That’s impacting everything from technology to package design. At Raising Cane’s, a fast food spot specializing in chicken fingers, engineers created an app function that delays sending the order until the customer is a certain distance from the restaurant. That way the food is at optimal crispiness at pick-up. This need for speed and ease is here to stay.Nidhin Mattappally, executive director of digital, Panda Express Meanwhile, Blaze had to design new packages and stickers to keep pizza boxes sealed, ensuring their contents stay hot. “Not everything holds up when sitting in a car for 20 minutes, and most restaurants haven't invested in figuring out the right packaging,” said Alex Canter, CEO of Ordermark, a restaurant order management system. “We saw restaurants get very creative, launching virtual restaurant brands that were more specifically designed for an off-premise experience. For example, steakhouses selling fried chicken sandwiches or grilled cheese sandwiches.” Pushing digitization forward Panda Express is piloting a program called Kiosk in a Pocket, which uses geofencing to let guests jump the line when they order via the app while in-store. Before Covid, the majority of Panda Express’s orders were placed via third-party vendors like DoorDash. That changed during the pandemic, with more customers using the app and website, prompting the company to partner with Hathway to redesign both for a more efficient experience. As a result, their owned digital business grew 4.5 times more in 2020 compared to the previous year, said Nidhin Mattappally, Panda Express's executive director of digital and restaurant experience. One of the goals for the digital redesign was increased conversion rates for customers who visited the app or website, but didn’t place an order. After the updates, their conversion rates nearly doubled. One of the big changes was the ability to split a combination order when ordering digitally, just like customers were able to do in-store. So if a customer wanted half fried rice, half chow mein, it was impossible to do digitally before the redesign. “During the pandemic, convenience became one of the most important aspects that guests look for from brands, and this need for speed and ease is here to stay,” Mattappaly said. “Seeing our digital sales still maintain at high levels has given us additional confidence that our guests like their experience and are choosing to engage with us through these channels even when they have other options.” Pepsi Gets Into Food Delivery With Its Own Restaurant