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What Is Mobile Order?
Before we delve into its benefits, let’s first give you an idea of how Mobile Order works. The best – and easiest – way to understand it is by knowing that it’s summarized as three essential steps: scan, order, and pay. And because we know every event is different and with its own unique processes, Mobile Order is completely customizable depending on your needs. Here’s a closer look at how it’s been designed according to the three steps:
Scan: How Your Visitors Get Into the Order Page
With Mobile Order, you can choose how your visitors see what’s on the menu. Perhaps it’s a QR-code on the table with short and clear instructions on how to use it, or, instead, maybe it’s integrated with your own festival or event app. There’s also the option for them to be sent a link in an email, WhatsApp, or SMS (made possible with our Mobile Marketing Cloud).
Order: Design Your Own Page
Here you can design how your order page looks, upload products, your own images, prices, logos, and text. Even create categories to make it easy for visitors to find your product if you like.
Pay: Determine How the Drinks Are Being Collected
For the third and final step, decipher how your visitors pick up their order. For example, will the waiters deliver the drinks to the visitor’s location, or will they collect them from a specific bar, as stipulated on their order receipt? Once the order is ready for pickup, fans receive a notification via email and SMS with pickup instructions. And as an event organizer, you can choose the payment method on the checkout page.
Benefits Of Mobile Ordering
There are four major benefits when it comes to utilizing Mobile Ordering tech. They are:
1. A Seamless, Satisfying Experience for All
First and foremost, Mobile Order has been designed to enrich your visitors' event experience, ensuring that they can enjoy their visit to the fullest. By ordering and paying directly via their mobile phones, the only contact they’ll have with your team is when they serve the snacks and drinks they ordered. This frictionless experience is easy, safe, and swift – a win-win for all involved.
And because payments are made in a secure environment, carried out by CM.com, there is no need for cash or antiquated token systems. For one, this means fewer security concerns. Guests no longer have to worry about their credit cards being lost or stolen. Likewise, event staff doesn’t need to keep an eye on their cash registers.
And it’s a move that’s already approved by most attendees. According to Statista, cashless transactions are on a rise worldwide.
With the entire ordering and payment process taken out of the organizer's hands, Mobile Order means visitors can be served quickly, even during peak times, with no long queues or worry about losing or running out of cash. On top of this, the system remains operational in case of PIN or internet failures. Phew!
2. Valuable Real-Time Insights
Not only do cashless payments increase attendee satisfaction, but mobile payments also help planners take better control of their event’s analytics and report through real-time event data such as attendee’s spending patterns and the most popular products. This enables event organizers to optimize their inventory, improve stock management and food wastage, and because inventory is updated in real-time, it means you won’t be selling items you no longer have in stock. You can even change what’s on the menu on the go thanks to real-time insights into sales and revenue.
Having access to this kind of data and insight can be invaluable for event organizers, especially during large-scale, high-pressure events like stadiums and festivals.
3. Increased Revenue
Naturally, employing a product like Mobile Order will add value for event organizers by reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Especially since poor visitor experience directly affects F&B businesses, particularly in the leisure industry.
According to Oracle’s Fan Experience report, the two biggest culprits for disturbing food and beverage sales are slow service and fear of missing game action. Even the perception of lengthy waits at concessions will have a massive impact on sales, it seems, as 45% of those surveyed revealed they had given up buying food or beverages at least once in the past 12 months because queues were too long.
However, another recent survey by Oracle uncovered how over half (59%) of sports fans would spend more on concessions if their wait time were cut in half, with 74% saying they’d prefer to pick up an order from an express line at a concession stand if it was possible.
So, by deploying your staff efficiently to reduce personnel costs, plus without the queues at the bar, staff can work on preparing orders. And because payments take place on the visitor's mobile, you don't need an expensive Cash Register System, let alone cash.
4. Better Understanding Your Visitors
When using Mobile Order, you’ll automatically collect the details from each of your visitors, which will give you greater insights into who they are: their preferences, their behaviors, and so on. This data will be collected legitimately by asking the attendees’ detail via the platform, which is collated in a Customer Data Platform.
Powered by Mobile Marketing Cloud, this means organizers can send them automated messages based on their preferences afterward or during the event, for example, targeted offers on products they bought at the last event they attended.
What Makes Mobile Order Stand Out of the Crowd
Finally, what makes Mobile Order unique is that it works in conjunction with all CM.com’s other tools, which integrate together seamlessly to offer an unrivaled experience – from Ticketing to Mobile Marketing Cloud. Also, if you’d still like to provide your customers with the option to buy at the bar using cash, that isn’t a problem - we offer a cash register system as part of our Mobile Order product, too.
