On November 26, 2021, WHO designated B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern, naming it Omicron. This new strain of SARS covid-19 has heightened tensions in the country. The new coronavirus variant, first detected in South Africa, has sparked a flurry of doubts and questions, prompted new travel bans, and also prompted us to wonder what will happen next.
Scientists are working hard to figure out how Omicron mutations affect the virus's transmissibility and mortality rate, as well as whether existing COVID-19 vaccines are effective against it.
Given what has happened in the restaurant industry in the past couple of years, it is important that we plan ahead of time. In this section, we will discuss how restaurants can be prepared against the new Omicron variant.
If your restaurant is important to you, your staff should be as well. Treat them as though they were members of your family, and provide them with the greatest possible guidance and equipment.
Emphasize the importance of good hand hygiene, which includes washing hands for at least 20 seconds after using the restroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
If you have really strict guidelines for providing leaves, now is the moment to be a little more lenient and affectionate. In these terrible times, don't cut compensation. Be kind to your coworkers and attempt to assist them in any manner you can.
Personal protection equipment (PPE) such as gloves and masks should be provided to employees. Prepare to connect employees with medical resources.
Prepare for a situation when you'll need to hasten an employee’s exit from your restaurant ahead of time. Make sure your team has a plan in place to deal with a sick employee in general. Protecting your staff and ensuring the safety of your other customers is your first responsibility.
Start pushing online ordering because it is unsafe for people to eat out, yet people still need some flavor in their lives.
Take high-quality food photographs and inform them about your services and the cuisine you serve. It's not just about the number of likes on your food photos or the number of followers on your business page; social media can be used for a variety of purposes to boost your online sales. You can add an "Order Food" call-to-action button to your business's Facebook page. This button can boost orders by 3% to 4%. You may also utilize Messenger chatbots to converse with clients who are placing orders in real- time.
Restaurant email marketing is a fantastic approach to get in touch with your consumers on a regular basis and form long-term relationships. It might be difficult to distinguish apart in the extremely competitive restaurant industry, when practically every other business uses emails to communicate with their consumers. Restaurant email marketing initiatives, on the other hand, can help you fill tables and foster long-term loyalty if done right.
Allowing people to receive rewards for ordering online is a terrific method to improve your online orders. Customers prefer to order via a mobile app or a website when they can obtain exclusive bargains, so take use of these statistics! You may provide free shipping for large orders and repeat customers, as well as a discount on a minimum purchase. Customers will return if you offer loyalty programs with points to gain. Whatever it is, make sure you publicize it widely enough for people to take advantage of it.
If you have a limited budget, say $75 a month, boosting a post rather than creating a campaign will save you time and provide similar results. The greatest candidates for boosting are frequently auto-suggested by Facebook. These are high-quality posts that are generating a lot of interaction in the form of likes, comments, and shares. Boosting a popular post allows you to reach a larger audience.
Until recently, only huge restaurant chains could afford sophisticated technologies and a worldwide data infrastructure to benefit their operations. However, thanks to advancements in cloud computing, these services are now available to even tiny family-owned businesses.
There are a variety of options available, ranging from third-party online ordering POS integrations like FoodKonnekt to restaurant point of sale systems with built-in restaurant online ordering software. Foodkonnekt provides the exclusive option of providing delivery drivers.
You can choose a platform that best suits your needs.
In these trying times, it's critical that we band together and try to put in place the best possible procedures in our restaurants so that we can face the challenges straight on.