Whether your business model relies solely on takeout and delivery, or you offer a mix of on-premise and off-premise sales, a well-designed restaurant delivery service system makes a world of a difference in bolstering sales, streamlining day-to-day processes, and improving customer satisfaction.

Thankfully, you’re not alone when it comes to finding ways to utilize a restaurant delivery service system that’s perfect for your business. These days, software like DataDreamers is specifically designed to make restaurant delivery more lucrative, automated, and efficient. Let’s take a look at how when you combine systems thinking with modern software, you can set your restaurant delivery business up for success.

Systems Make Life Run Smoothly—They Can Help Your Delivery Service, Too

Systems are powerful tools, but many restaurant owners don’t realize how much they rely on them. As a result, systems thinking is painfully underutilized. If you aren’t convinced, just think about all the systems that are needed just to get food to your restaurant’s kitchen:

• Education & training programs that teach people to grow crops and raise meat
• Distribution centers where products are sorted, stored, and shipped
• Highways, canals, and airways that transport food from one place to another
• Food vendors that act as a mediary between you and the supplier

So, even if you think your delivery service can operate without robust systems in place, the reality is, systems are at the heart of every functioning society. Taking advantage of software that helps you design and implement an efficient restaurant delivery service system is the best way to get the most of modern-day developments.

“If you are a jeweler, or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. You learn it through endless repetition until it belongs to you.” – Jaques Pepin

Jaques Pepin is one of the world’s most celebrated chefs. A secret to his culinary success can be seen in the quote above. Even though cooking is a creative art, he recognized that processes, repetition, and systems are at the heart of culinary innovation and success. This rings even more true if you’re in the restaurant delivery business—after all, the business you’re really in is (ultra fast-paced) logistics.

Why Does the Restaurant Delivery Industry Push Back Against Systems?

No matter how big or small your restaurant is, if you do deliveries, you need a strong system in place to get food from your kitchen to your customers’ doors. And, you need a system that’s fast, affordable, and straightforward. So why do some business owners resist using systems, and choose to fly by the seat of their pants? Let’s take a look at a few primary reasons:

• Owners fear using a system will stymie their creative freedom
• They don’t want to use services from industry giants
• Their in-house delivery capability isn’t designed to handle the high delivery volume that the pandemic has helped bring about

This is where using Restaurant Delivery Service systems (RDS) comes in—they represent a mid-sized option that frees up bandwidth to focus on your food and customer service. But, that also offers a variety of personalized, custom options. At the end of the day, software like DataDreamers reduces the number of small, insignificant decisions you have to make. So, you can focus on the decisions that matter—to your customers and your business.

How Can Systems Thinking Make Deliveries Run Smoother?

Software can master the repetition and processes that Jaques Pepin was such a huge proponent of. In turn, you can direct your energy towards improving your business. There are a plethora of factors that can make or break your restaurant delivery service system’s success, such as:

• Routing
• Dispatching
• Delivery time estimates
• Online ordering capabilities
• Accurate reporting to track sales and metrics
• Communication between you, your customers, and your delivery personnel

It’s a lot of moving parts, and your business needs to deliver—literally. Using software that systematizes every aspect of your concept, from the initial order to ringing your customer’s doorbell, will dramatically cut down on redundancy and wasted effort.

Not only will your business benefit, but so will your customers. They’ll be grateful when their food arrives faster, and you’ll never go back to running a restaurant delivery service system without systems thinking again.