Many restaurants have a philosophy about using multi-restaurant online ordering portals - they grit their teeth and do it. 

Most of the time restaurants allow themselves to be listed on portal sites to get any exposure they may bring.  According to a Cornell Hospitality Report, though, “nearly half of the consumers on multiple-restaurant sites (47.1%) said they clicked over to the restaurant’s own website to order their food” once they found a restaurant they liked.  That’s good news for restaurants using NetWaiter – it can, not only save the restaurant a lot of money, but also allow the restaurant to interact with their customers directly, rather than be ‘commoditized’ on a restaurant portal.

The bottom line – portals can charge some outrageous fees.  According to a recent piece in Gourmet Marketing, a well-known portal site they investigated "keeps their contract terms behind close(d) doors, and the rates vary by restaurant. This incredible lack of transparency shortchange(s) restaurants… It gives restaurant owners little room to compare in competitive markets, especially as many times restaurant owners are bound by a non-disclosure agreement.”

The article notes that fees can range from 11% to as high as 20%.  In addition, restaurants don’t directly receive money from incoming orders – they have to wait for the portal to send them a check (minus their fees).  Not only that, as one restaurant owner admits, portal sites also use a restaurant’s customer list against you.  "I never see a report of who ordered through the portal," he said.  "I'm sure they are using my customer information to market themselves to other restaurants."

The message to restaurant owners is simple - if you use portal sites to help promote your restaurant, you should be very aggressive about converting those customers to your own online ordering site.  Rather than pay huge fees to a portal, customers that order directly from your site will allow you to extend your brand identity to them, receive payments directly, and capture your own customer information.

To capture those 47.1% of visitors that would rather order directly from your website, you need to make sure your ‘Order Online’ link is prominently displayed on your homepage.  Additionally, you should inform guests that have already used a portal to order from your restaurant that you have your own online ordering system, guaranteed to be up-to-date with the latest offers and menu information.  Including a flyer with each portal order or offering a first-time discount for using your system are goodways to make sure their next order will be “NetWaiter-ed” from your restaurant.

If you did a Google search for "Google +1 for restaurants", the first entry to come up is an article on FastCasual.com talking about NetWaiter imbedding this new social media tool into client NetWaiter sites. 

When a customer visits a restaurant’s NetWaiter site, they can click their Google +1 button, placing that restaurant on the customer’s Google profile as someplace they like and recommend. The Google +1 clicks can also improve their ranks in Google Search.

A June article in Mashable.com stated:  "Google’s hoping that +1’s integration in search results will make it an attractive option to publishers, which stand to gain more traffic when their visitors start '+1ing' content."  According to a Google blog post: “The next time your connections are searching, they could see your +1’s directly in their search results.”  FastCasual.com also mentions: "The biggest draw to Google+ is its potential to leverage every Google property, including Gmail, Maps, Places, Analytics, AdWords and Reader."

The increased focus on social media of all types is pervasive.  NetWaiter was the first web-based online ordering system to offer Facebook integration and we continue to see social media as an area for growth and a powerful tool to drive more business to our clients.  Google +1 is an option that can provide referrals to NetWaiter clients and NetWaiter wants to capture that benefit.  As the Google +1 network expands, it promises to have a substantial impact on everyone using Google, including customers searching for restaurants. 

An online nutritional calculator, developed by NetWaiter, is just one of the successful web-based features used by Greenz Salads, a Texas-based restaurant chain with three locations in the Dallas metropolitan area.

"It is a great tool," said Casie Caldwell, owner of Greenz Salads.  "The functionality is right on.  It gives us a competitive edge.  We've since seen this concept copied by several large chains."

Its success should not be a shock.  A recent QSRweb.com report of a forecast by the National Restaurant Association cites that in 2011, seven out of ten consumers stated they would try to eat healthier when dining out.  Self, a women’s magazine, also reports getting more than 1 million unique visitors each month to its online nutritional calculator.

Caldwell came to NetWaiter, a firm that provides branded online ordering and marketing solutions to restaurants, with this challenge for their “Build Your Own Salad” offering.  The popular menu item allows customers to create their own salad with numerous ingredients, including the choice of lettuce, toppings, and a variety of dressings.

"The 'Build Your Own' is a favorite of our customers," said Caldwell.  "While we were able to list the nutritional content of our other dishes, we didn't have a way to do it with that offering.  Every order is different."

NetWaiter worked with Greenz to integrate a nutritional calculator into their online menu for their “Build Your Own Salad” item.  As a customer builds their salad with their selections, item by item, the nutritional calculator instantly calculates and updates the nutritional information as each option is selected.

"One of the goals was to create a tool that consumers were already familiar with," said Jared Shimoff of NetWaiter.  "The calculator reads like a nutrition label found on items in a supermarket - listing not only calories, but also cholesterol, potassium, sodium, carbohydrates and protein.  Each one of these measurements is recalculated as options are added to a salad."