What is a Digital Menu?

Every café, restaurant, or food business has a menu where they showcase all their dishes and bestsellers to customers. Typically, these menus come in the form of hard copies that waiters hand out to guests as they are seated at their tables inside the establishment. A digital menu, as its name suggests, is a digitalised copy of a restaurant menu. Read on to find out more about what is a digital menu, how it works, why you should get it for your business, and where you can get it.

How Does a Digital Menu Work?

A typical dine-in setup inside a restaurant is a customer is seated at their table, handed the menu and their orders are taken, and the food is served. With a digital menu, customers no longer have to wait for a waiter to hand them the menu from their seat. A QR code should be readily available on their table and all they have to do is scan it using their phone and the digital menu should pop up on their screen.

Customers can take as much time as they need to choose from the food options without feeling pressured that another table might need to take a look at the menu to make an order. Because waiters won’t have to hand out the menus to every table anymore, they can use the time to complete other customer requests in the meantime to improve customer service. Customer experience is also improved as they can start choosing from the menu as soon as they are seated at their table.

When customers want to make an additional order, they don’t have to call a waiter to ask for the menu again instead, they can just scan the QR code on their table again and instantly get access to the menu.

Benefits of Having a Digital Menu

Your existing restaurant menu works fine so why should you switch to a digital menu? First of all, a digital menu is an upgrade from a flimsy hardcopy menu that gets dirty fast. For many customers, a dull greasy food menu is already a turn-off even before they had the chance to taste your food. A digital menu lets you leave a good first impression on your guests. Here's how else you can benefit from it:

A digital menu enhances the customer and employee experience. Having a digital menu reduces order time as customers can choose from the food options as soon as they are sat at their table. Servers can do other value-adding activities in the meantime instead of waiting for a customer to make a decision.

• It is easy to update.

A digital menu makes it easy to make changes to your menu be it adding a new dish to the options or changing your prices. It is more cost- and time-effective as you don’t have to spend extra on printing out revised copies of your menu anymore.

• It gives you a competitive advantage.

When customers see that you are making use of technology that is easily accessible to them, they will get the impression that you are a forward-thinking business. This makes their experience at your place more memorable and sets you apart from the competition.

• It can showcase appetising media.

The images on your physical menu fade over time making your food look less attractive to your customers. With a digital menu, you can incorporate stunning visuals to show your products in the best light and possibly increase your sales.

• It is easily accessible to everyone.

QR code is a pretty common technology that almost everyone has access to. Your digital menu can be accessed by your guests on nearly every mobile device and if not, QR scanner apps can be easily downloaded within seconds.

• It reduces the spread of infections.

If there’s one thing the pandemic taught us it’s that the more touchpoints an item has, the higher its chances of spreading infections. You won’t have to pass physical menus from table to table anymore when you have a digital menu reducing the risk of transmitting bacteria or viruses.

• It gives you useful business insights.

Customers can have relevant and enticing alternatives tailored to them in real-time using a digital menu combined with predictive audience analytics. You can keep track of customer data like the number of visitors and the most visited hours.

Where to Get a Digital Menu

Now that you know what is a digital menu and the advantages it can offer your business, you must be excited to get it for your restaurant immediately. You can get a digital menu tailored to your brand from reputable apps like Menulio. This simple four-step process lets you get a digital menu fast and easy:

Sign up for free from your phone or PC.

Access the Menulio website or app from your desired device and register to the platform. You can complete the sign-up within seconds by simply entering your email, password, and business name.

Create your ideal menu for free.

Build your desired restaurant menu as you like. Add categories such as appetisers, mains, and desserts and input their respective prices. You can also add icons and designs; some features may only be available after going premium.

Choose your preferred subscription plan and payment method.

You get a free 14-day trial to get a feel of the app. After that, you can subscribe monthly to a premium account for only £10 to get access to exclusive features you can use to enhance your menu and collect valuable client data and insights.

Introduce your new digital menu to your customers!

Once you download your unique QR code, it’s time to put it to the test! You can print it out on a small sheet to put on each table at your restaurant. Your customers will simply need to scan it using their phones and voila! — they can access your digital menu just like that.

A digital menu is the future of the food and drink industry. If you are a future-minded business owner who wants to gain a competitive advantage to boost sales and grow your brand, get a digital menu today and show your customers what it feels like to dine at the best restaurant in town.