I sat down at a restaurant (major chain) for the 1st time in over a year recently. The experience was familiar, but also somewhat changed. Menus were only available upon request, and we were only given one to share. It got me thinking about the overlooked opportunity for restaurants to use technology to enhance the dining experience, and so I went digging into Resonate’s real-time data for the restaurant industry. Rapidly shifting consumer dining experience preferences prove the huge opportunity for restaurants to reinvent themselves post-COVID.

Resonate Recent Events Consumer Data Proves Restaurant Resurgence

Our latest wave of data tracking consumer sentiment and behavior shifts amid recent events shows the number of people who are dining out at least once a week has increased by 18% in the last two months. 

See the full report: Resonate COVID-19 and Emerging Trends Report, Wave 16, June 2021

Tech-Driven vs Traditional: How Restaurant App Usage Signals other Dining Experience Preferences

And according to our latest research, 111.7 million U.S. consumers regularly use a restaurant app to order food, vs. 104.5 million who do not.

I was curious to see if this single data attribute provides a predictive signal regarding top consideration factors, and sure enough, insights started to emerge.

Consumers who use restaurant apps prefer the environment & efficiency of dining

Here we can see that the quality of food is a fundamental expectation of both groups, which is not surprising. However, as we dig deeper we see that App Users are more likely to choose a restaurant based on the overall dining environment and speed of receiving food, while the non-app users are primarily driven by location.

Source: the Resonate Ignite Platform™

It’s beyond the scope of this blog post to show the 100s of restaurant brands that I analyzed, but I pulled a few national chains from our casual dining and fast-food categories below.

Here we can see that those who regularly use a restaurant app like to eat at places like Olive Garden, Chili’s, Red Robin, Subway, and Arby’s.

Source: the Resonate Ignite Platform™

Consumers who do NOT use restaurant apps prefer familiar, dependable, enjoyable dining experiences

When it comes to reaching the considerable population who has yet to download a restaurant app, enticing them to dine requires a different outreach strategy. From a pure messaging standpoint, these 104.5 million non-app users over-index for attributes such as familiarity, dependability, and enjoyment. Weaving this messaging to increase app adoption should leverage these themes extensively.

Source: the Resonate Ignite Platform™

What do YOUR customers and prospects prefer?

As evidenced by these real-time analyses, getting consumers to adopt app usage is achievable with the right combination of consumer-driven thinking, personalized messaging, and targeted outreach. Resonate has an unrivaled understanding of the US consumer and how they think, behave, and make decisions. All this information can be easily analyzed within the Resonate Ignite Platform™, as well as activated digitally to increase visits from both important groups of consumers. Interested? Let’s connect.