As a restaurateur, you know that running a successful restaurant requires passion, perseverance, people skills, and insight into what you spend, what you make, and where

There’s no industry quite like the restaurant industry. The social skills, work ethic, and speed that come with being a restaurateur is a job in and of itself. And to run a successful restaurant business, you also have to constantly be aware of your bottom line – the number itself and what’s contributing to that number. In 2021, industry innovations like delivery represent both a new expense and a new opportunity to increase your sales & revenue.

Delivery platform commissions have become a hot topic over the past year. Managing high commissions on tight margins can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, we’ve begun seeing major delivery platforms restructure commissions in support of restaurants via tiers, sliding scales and more.

The cost of working with third-party delivery platforms is constantly evolving and will likely continue to do so in the future. But as customer behaviour shifts towards ordering more food, more often through delivery, it’s an important channel for restaurants like yours to take advantage of.

Delivery is an investment worth making based on recent & continued growth in the space, but if you’re going to commit to delivery, it’s worth optimising to make your performance as successful as possible.

‍Understanding & optimising your business based on performance data will help make your restaurant more profitable.

As a restaurant owner, making decisions is a big part of your job, but how many of them are based on data? Let’s think about this: if your restaurant offers delivery, you're already collecting hundreds of pieces of data every day. You know what your customers order most, you have insight into your average ticket size, peak hours, and more. But to date, you’ve only been able to see a platform by platform view. Interesting? Sure. Actionable? Not really. Say goodbye to spending hours downloading spreadsheets and searching for ways to optimise their performance across multiple delivery platforms. Say hello to actionable, holistic, and to-the-point data.

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How Otter’s Business Manager can help you grow your delivery business – for free

Otter’s Business Manager turns your performance data from a complicated pile of spreadsheets with conflicting numbers into a visual, actionable dashboard you can access from anywhere at any time. Think of our Business Manager as the command centre for your delivery business. This solution allows you to track the performance of all your delivery orders across partners in real-time. Simply connect your delivery services like Uber Eats, Just Eat, and Deliveroo, and Otter will unify all your data into a single, easy-to-understand place. Forget about pulling individual spreadsheets from multiple platforms: now you can get a more holistic, actionable view of your performance to make decisions based on data in the most efficient way possible. The best part? If you're already an Otter customer, our Business Manager is completely free.

Read on to learn how you can turn your performance data into increased sales and improved restaurant operations.

Top 5 reasons you should track your restaurant’s performance across location & platform… and how Otter can help

Collecting your performance data across locations and platforms is the first step. But growing your business based on that data requires a level of insight that can feel complicated and time-consuming. Otter’s Business Manager is built with restaurant owners in mind! Read on to learn the top 5 reasons Otter’s Business Manager can change your business in just a few clicks.

1. Make sure that your investment into multiple delivery platforms is resulting in sales for your restaurant.

ROI (return on investment, how much you spend versus how much you get) is one of the most popular metrics within our Business Manager. Located on the main screen of the platform, restaurants use our ROI tool to gain insight into total sales inclusive of multiple delivery platforms, stores, and brands. Delivery’s an investment, we’re here to help you make the most out of it.

2. See what your customers are loving and not liking with our menu management tool

If you’re offering delivery, you can see your order history. But drawing conclusions from platform-based data alone can be messy and inconclusive. Our Business Manager makes tracking menu item performance simple via our Menu Movers and Shakers section. Menu Movers and Shakers lets you see your most popular dishes based on both total sales and the number of orders. This information reveals potential updates you can make to your menu to get more orders. Perhaps your chicken sandwich isn’t ordered often on-premise, but it's a favourite on delivery: why not edit your menu to offer a spicy chicken sandwich, chicken sliders, and other variations of the item? Maybe when summer arrives, the caesar salad is ordered more often than the chicken sandwich. No problem, you can easily adjust your menu as things change with a few simple clicks.

3. Gain insight into mistakes that occurred today so you can minimise lost revenue tomorrow

You’re busy. You’re aware that you had errors or cancelled orders throughout the day, but by the time you get home, you’re more focused on tomorrow than yesterday. We get it. With Otter’s Business Manager, checking your order history has never been easier. Learn why, when & where you lost money on order errors or cancelled orders with a glance to make sure that you can decrease lost revenue in the future. Knowing when, where and why you’re losing money is good for your bottom line, but it’s also beneficial for your ranking on delivery platforms. Delivery platforms use metrics like order errors and cancellations to decide just where you rank within their app. Knowing that 80% of customers place a delivery order from the platform homepage, it's worth taking a look.

4. View your performance in the way that makes the most sense for your restaurant

Data is of no use unless you have the power to sort and view the numbers in the most impactful means possible for your business. Otter's Business Manager lets you filter your performance across multiple parameters so you can dig into what’s working and what isn’t.

Do you work with Just Eat, Uber Eats, and Deliveroo? Filter your data by platform to review your performance on each individual platform. Do you have multiple locations? Filter & compare performance by location. Want to know if it would be a good idea to offer a brunch menu? Filter by days and hours to identify when you see the most orders and when you could use some new traffic.

Otter's filters allow you to explore performance across delivery platform, sales, location, menu item, and more, so you can use your data just the way you need it.

5. Grow your reach and revenue through virtual brands

Now that you have access to all your key data, it's time to make decisions that will help you grow your sales. Virtual brands are a great option to increase revenue with the resources you already have, and you can add virtual brands to your storefront with just a few simple clicks within our Business Manager.

Maybe you offer a couple of vegetarian dishes on your menu that have been very well received; how about creating a separate vegetarian virtual brand? Perhaps your desserts are very popular and could have their own brand. If you get a lot of orders at dinner but very few during the day, you could consider offering breakfast on weekends or lunchtime menus for local offices.

With Otter, it's easy to experiment with more than one virtual brand to get the most out of your kitchen.

Restaurants, taking advantage of your performance data doesn’t get any easier than with Otter’s Business Manager. Say goodbye to endless spreadsheets, hours of analysis, and inconclusive reporting. Start improving your delivery performance from a single dashboard for free today!

If you’re new to Otter, welcome! Fill out the form below to get started with our free Business Manager today.