The pandemic has meant many businesses have had to adapt. Sometimes your business is open, sometimes it’s click and collect, sometimes you can offer delivery. Do you know a website can switch modes to support that?
If you’re concerned that to futureproof your business needs to have a non-permanent online option, perhaps if you’re a restaurant or retail business, you can do that.
Many businesses have had to enable online click and collect, delivery options and takeaway. Clear messaging to support this, so customers know their options has also been a challenge, for instance, when the business is closed, when the business is next open, etc.
For restaurants in particular, the pandemic has meant that they’ve have had to face their digital future perhaps quicker that they were otherwise ready to. Speed has been vital in adapting their websites so they can serve customers in different ways.
Where click and collect has never been a thing, it now really is a thing. Customers in lockdown craving takeaway, will naturally veer towards their favourite restaurants and takeaways that have a clear click and collect, or delivery, ordering process; a menu they can select from, pay in a way that suits them and select their preferred time for collection, or delivery.
But the click and collect option for many businesses in a hurry to offer this to customers has often resulted in a crude add-on. It’s common to see clickable links from the homepage, for example, ‘See our temporary menu’, ‘See our lockdown click and collect’ or ‘See our reduced menu’. And usually this is isn’t a digitally functioning option, but only a static menu/product list, perhaps with complex instructions to collect at a certain time, pay on the phone, stand two metres from the door, wear a mask, and text with a password to have your goods passed to you.
We exaggerate, but you get the point.
Every business is different, so there’s no standard way you should make yours fit into templates and page options that don’t deliver the maximum results from trading that you could otherwise achieve.
Imagine a workflow of orders that operates the way you need it to, whenever you needed it to, COVID-19 or not.
What if you suddenly have to change your business again because you or staff have to self-isolate? Or, we go into another lockdown? Or, that people have got so used to digital ordering, and click and collect options now, that they now want this as a permanent option?
The last 12 months have proved that there’s no one right, constant, way to run a business. What might work one week, doesn’t work the next. Changing opening hours, changing menus, changing product lines.
If you talk to a good web developer, they can ensure your website has modes that switch as you need them to. It’s about being ahead, and ensuring you’ve got the right digital functions to support your business, whether that’s the right website, or smartphone applications or both, for your customer to use and buy from you with ease.
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