How to sell Apps

Restaurants


Booking


Step-by-Step


API’s


Associations

With Dallas Passport you can create a lot of different apps, we offer over 500 features.

So, you can target many different sectors. You’ll find in this article a few good practices to sell an app to a restaurant. Since the Covid health crisis, the restaurant industry is changing. And this opens a lot of opportunities for you.

For restaurants and the catering industry, an app can have several functions. It can be transactional (Shopping Apps) or it can be promotional (Classic App). If your client’s goal is just to promote their restaurant, we advise you to choose to create a Classic app. If on the other hand, your client wants to do take-away sales (or delivery), it would be best to opt for an app where the end customers can choose products and validate an order. You will need to create a Shopping App in this case.

Here are the main options to put forward to sell an app for a restaurant. 

1. Classic apps

The CMS (Content Management System):

The CMS part will be the most important for a restaurant that wants to communicate through an app.

First of all, the “Articles” will allow you to talk about the specificities and the history of the restaurant, but also to add its menu. We advise you to give access to the back-office to your customer so they can edit these articles. Some restaurant owners make regular changes to their menu or recipes and will feel more comfortable if they can update their menu themselves. Moreover, the articles of the CMS part are all the more important if the restaurant owner also decides to publish their PWA (Web App), it will allow them to improve their indexing on search engines. 

In addition to the articles, the CMS also offers maps. It should always be easy to find a restaurant. Some customers may abandon the idea of going there if the restaurant is not easily accessible. Moreover, with the Map option, the end-user will be able to be geolocated via their smartphone and find the way to the restaurant very easily. A restaurant owner who owns several establishments will be even more interested in this option since it’s possible to add several points on the map.

The “Form” option can be interesting in 2 ways for a restaurant. First, it can simply be used as a contact form for any request. But for a restaurant that does catering services or events, it can allow them to receive requests for these services directly from the app and create quotes.

The “Calendar” section will also be very useful for a restaurant that often organizes theme parties. It can be updated regularly and is a very attractive tool to attract customers to your restaurant.

Finally, the “Video” section will allow restaurant owners to show their savoir-faire and highlight their establishment. A video is very attractive to the customers because they can feel much more the atmosphere which reigns in the restaurant than on photos. The restaurant owner can also show their kitchens while they prepare dishes or even create a buzz with a chef offering little recipes or culinary tips.

User management: Even if a restaurant’s first goal is not to build a community, it can create a user part for its loyal customers. These customers will, for example, have access to certain parts of the app that are not accessible to non-registered people. For example, they can create a specific “Calendar” section for private parties or previews. Or they could reserve access to the chef’s recipes for members only. 

Thanks to this option, restaurateurs can give an “exclusive” aspect to the people who subscribed to the app. The goal, in addition to creating buzz, is to segment their clientele to send push notifications or give them access to exclusive promos. Moreover, another option can be added to the user management. It is the “Geofencing”. This module is used to send a notification to the user of the app when they come within a certain geographical radius. When one of the users of the app enters the neighborhood of the restaurant they can receive the special of the day for example. This can bring in a few more covers during the day.

Couponing and Loyalty Card: These 2 add-ons (paid) are really dedicated to customer loyalty. Couponing allows you to create coupons (discount or free dessert for example). These coupons will be incentives for customers to come back to the establishment. The coupons can be used to introduce new products or new dishes to customers. 

The loyalty card as its name indicates is used to retain loyal customers by offering them discounts or gifts after accumulating points. It is simply the loyalty card with stamps which has been used for a long time but in digital version. It is more effective than the paper version. Almost nobody uses it anymore and a loyalty card in an app will give the establishment a much more modern image. This loyalty card is perfectly customizable in terms of the gift offered or the number of points to access the gift.

Push notifications: The ultimate mobile app feature. Push notifications are the most read messages by smartphone users. Push is perfectly integrated into the interface and design of the smartphone. And on top of that, users give their approval to receive the notifications. So they don’t consider pushes as spam and are even waiting for these notifications. And thanks to Dallas Passport a restaurant manager will be able to send pushes for a lot of reasons: a new dish, a new menu, new hours, a new video, or even to promote a coupon! It is a very effective marketing tool that will seduce restaurant owners who have suffered a lot from the various restrictions recently. However, be careful to use this tool sparingly. If you send more than one notification per day, usually users get bored and may unsubscribe.

Statistics: With Dallas Passport, everything is tracked to see which marketing actions are the most effective. You can also see the number of downloads, the platforms used by customers (iOS or Android) and the geographical locations of users. If you want to go further in tracking statistics, you can synchronize your client’s app with Google Analytics. This will make it easier to implement the best strategies to make the app a success.

2. Shopping Apps

If your customer’s primary goal is not communication but transaction, you will need to create an eCommerce app. This kind of app is mostly used for take-out. 

Some options are common to both eCommerce and Classic Apps. You can take advantage of the “Article” part of the CMS, the form, and the Maps. They will have the same functions as the Classic app: highlighting content. There is no video section, but it is possible to add one or more videos in an article.

On the other hand in eCommerce apps, it is of course possible to take payments and many other things that can help a restaurant to do take-out.

OffLine Payment: Whether your client is doing takeout or Click and Collect (to be picked up at the restaurant by the customer), they regularly receive payments in check or cash. This type of payment doesn’t normally make sense in the eCommerce world, but for restaurant owners who sell takeout it’s an option they’ll appreciate. They will be able to keep their usual way of doing business. The end customer validates their transaction and chooses not to pay in the app but rather when they pick up their order.

Local delivery: In a classic eCommerce app or site one usually has country or worldwide delivery zones. A restaurant owner, if they deliver meals, usually does not go beyond their city. So there is an option in Dallas Passport that allows you to choose delivery zones by zip code, which will be a great help for those businesses that operate on a local scale. 

Click And Collect: Of course, we thought about delivery, but we also know that some restaurant owners don’t have a delivery service. They just do take-out that customers come to pick up in the establishment even if in most cases they do both delivery and take-out). In both cases, Dallas Passport meets their need. With the free “Click and Collect” add-on, the final customer places their order, decides to pay online or not, and picks up it directly at the restaurant. This is a very interesting feature for this industry because they are used to receiving orders from regular customers. Everything is usually done by phone, there can be mistakes and for small structures, it disrupts the organization to receive orders by phone. In this case, the restaurant owner concentrates on their savoir-faire and the app takes the orders for them. In addition, this option can attract new customers and thus increase the restaurant’s sales. 

Delivery slots: This option is a must-have for restaurant owners who do takeout. In addition to being able to save time with the app and avoid a whole bunch of phone calls to receive orders, they will be able to choose the time slots at which they want to deliver or receive orders. So if a restaurant is closed one day in the week, its customers will not be able to place an order. This avoids many disappointments. Moreover, thanks to this option, the restaurant owner can limit the orders on certain slots so as not to be caught short and not to be able to supply. For example, they can decide to create 15 mn or 30 mn slots. And decide to receive a maximum of 10 orders per 15-minute slot. This way, they will manage their kitchen better and customers will not be disappointed by a long delivery time.

Buy again: Many orders in restaurants are often the same. Some people like to explore new flavors, others who regularly order from the same restaurant have a favorite dish or menu. With the “Buy Again” option, restaurant customers will be able to save time when placing an order. They will be able to retrieve an old cart that they had already validated. Then they can either modify it or send it as is and place an order much faster. This kind of option boost sales because it offers more convenience to the final customer (no more waiting on the phone for example…).

Quick check-out: This feature is very useful if you do click and collect. Indeed, when you place an order on a smartphone it’s easy. But if there are many unnecessary steps to validate, it becomes annoying. For example, you have to enter your address when you are going to pick up your meal at the restaurant. Thanks to the “Quick Check-out” option, this step is skipped. Indeed, if the customer chooses the “Pick-up ” option, they will not need to enter their address unnecessarily to finalize the order. The goal again is to make the buying process smoother and therefore, generate more business.

Discounts: It is possible to create special promotions in eCommerce apps that are not the same as in Classic apps. You can choose to offer a discount from a certain amount ordered or happy hours. And of course, just like on Classic apps, these coupons can be sent via Push notifications to give your offer even more chance of success.

Client list: You don’t have to register in the app to place an order. But as soon as someone validates an order in the app, they are automatically added to the client list. If you have regular customers, you will also have people who only place a few orders. You can, thanks to the listing, decide to do a special promotion for certain customers and thus, encourage them to order again in the restaurant app.

Public API: If your client wants to integrate the app’s order management with their checkout system, it will be possible to integrate it through our public API for Shopping apps. This way, they can choose to receive orders directly on their kitchen printer for example, and avoid going to the back-office or having a laptop handy. All this makes order processing even easier and more efficient for restaurant owners.

Statistics: In addition to the statistics already offered in the Classic Apps, you will also find all the details on your sales and the products that sell the most. An indispensable tool to do sales analysis and help your client to optimize their app.

 The foodservice industry has been greatly impacted by the current health circumstances. It is a sector that is dynamic but changing. Covid’s pandemic resulted in a change in mindset in terms of technological tools. That’s why as an App Reseller, it’s in your best interest to look for these types of customers, it’s the right time. Moreover, as we have just seen, Dallas Passport gives you a lot of features that will surely convince restaurant managers.

With more than 500 features and 140 extensions, Dallas Passport allows you to target a wide range of customers, with content management apps and eCommerce apps.

Today, we will see how to sell an app to manage appointments booking. Customers now prefer to book appointments via an app, because it’s much quicker and more convenient than calling on the phone! Plus, there are fewer scheduling errors with an app.

1. Identify potential customers

• Hairdressers
• Barbers
• Beauty salons
• Aesthetic salons
• Spa treatments
• Dental practice

2. Key features

To win over the customers we mentioned earlier, you need to know and master the key features to use for appointments booking apps. Here are the main features to use:

Appointments booking

This feature allows your customers to manage their appointment booking in their app. The “appointment booking” section is synchronized with your customer’s Google calendar. So as soon as an appointment is booked in your app, it’s visible in their Google calendar. Your customer receives an email informing them that an appointment has been booked in his app. The user, who chooses the day and time according to the criteria your customer has set, also receives a confirmation email. In addition, you can add multiple “appointment booking” sections to your app.

A complete content management system

The Dallas Passport CMS (content management system) is a useful tool for your customer, enabling them to present their catalog of services, the services they offer and their prices. Users then have all the information they need to choose the services best suited to their needs.

Loyalty program

A loyalty program can be set up within the app to boost business and reward the most loyal users, who will then be willing to leave a positive review following their visit to your customer’s establishment.

Form section

The contact form enables your customer to collect user requests and profile information. In this way, app users can suggest improvements, respond to surveys or make suggestions for services they’d like to see available in the future.

Push notifications

As a service provider, it’s very important for your customer to maintain contact with customers and prospects. With Dallas Passport, you can give them the opportunity to build a solid and diversified communication strategy: automatic, manual or even geolocalized push notifications, etc.… to communicate the right message, at the right time, in the right way.

About section

In addition to making appointments and presenting your services, the app is the ideal place to introduce yourself. The About section allows your customer to tell us more about themselves, their history, their know-how… To tell the story of who it is and make users want to choose it. Opt for a Contact section and a Map section to enable customers and future customers to contact your customer and find them easily.

3. Selling points

Better management of your schedule

The advantage of an app is that your customer no longer has to worry about making an appointment over the phone. As a result, they can focus on their core business and be more efficient. It also means fewer booking errors. Everything is automated and managed in the customer’s app, enabling better organization and more efficient work, with peace of mind.

A perfect customer experience

We have designed this feature with design and user experience at its core. It’s fluid and intuitive. It’s very easy for an app user to book a slot. They then receive an automatic confirmation email and can even cancel the appointment if necessary.

Managing several calendars in the app

If your customer offers different services that require different schedules, this is not a problem. You can add as many “appointment booking” sections to the application as you like.

Share customers’ reviews

Customers are the best asset: by sharing customer reviews in your app, your customer will be able to showcase their business and the quality of their work. It’s a way of strengthening the commitment of existing customers and gaining the trust of new ones.

Building loyalty

An in-app loyalty program can boost business and reward the most loyal customers with rewards, such as a free service.

Branding

The key argument for convincing your customer: their services are at users’ fingertips with a mobile app. Your brand image is thus reinforced, thanks to an app available on all types of support: the web, Android’s Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

 

1. Choose a theme

Choosing a theme is the first step to create your Beautiful App. In your back office, you will find a choice of over 25 different themes (and counting) created by our designers. The theme you choose is just a starting point, you’ll be able to customize and adjust its settings completely.

We recommend picking a style which is close enough to the color scheme or the look and feel you want for your Beautiful App. For instance, for this app, we started with the theme “Green”.

2. Build your Home

The Home is the first screen users will see when opening your app. It is therefore an important feature of your app, both visually and practically. With GoodBarber 4.0, the Home lets you choose which content to highlight upon opening the app. It also lets you display links towards the primary destinations making up your app.

The modular home introduced by GoodBarber 4.0 is made up of two different kinds of widgets, content widgets and navigation widgets (links)—a total of 66 widgets has been developed so far. Templates associated with widgets have a mobile, tablet and desktop declination.

Here you can see that we’ve added our first widget, a Content widget, to feature an mCMS articles section (our restaurant’s menu):

After selecting a template (Banner > Minimal), we customized the font used to display the Title as well as the number of items displayed, from 3 to 4.

Now, let’s add another Content widget to feature our Events, and select a template for it, List > Card.

We then proceeded to add Links, the first one towards our About section:

As you can see, according to your choice of template (here, Banner > SmallSlideshow) it is possible to show a button and edit several design settings (the font, the copy, etc.):

We added another Navigation widget with another set of links. We created a distinct widget in order to enable a different template, List > VisualIcon. As you can see you can feature internal links (towards sections), as well as external links (towards your Facebook page for instance):

Our Home now features a total of 4 widgets.

3. Build your Menu

With GoodBarber 4.0, the Menu is used for secondary navigation within your app. Your Home already provides points of entry towards the sections of your choice, as well as call to actions, which is why you can even choose the option to not display a Menu at all. If you do choose to enable a Menu (or Browsing mode in your back office), you can choose between 7 different types of “menus” or browsing modes, to further distribute traffic within your app. 

Building the menu can be achieved independently of the number of sections in the app for complete control over the navigation of your app. Your menu can feature links and shortcuts, to point towards destinations, and titles and separators, to prioritize information within the menu (these two serve design purposes).

Here we’ve selected the Slate template: 

We’ve added the restaurant’s logo in the Header along with Shortcuts (Loyalty Card, Settings, Call), we’ve featured our main sections in the Body, and a Copyright in the Footer.

4. Add your Content

Up until now, using the Sample content provided in the app can be a convenient way to achieve a great design without having an empty app. But here are a few examples of how to proceed when you’re ready to start adding your own content. 

• Here we used an mCMS articles section to display the restaurant’s menu. We then customized the list of articles view, choosing a full screen display template (template n°8).

• Another key feature you might want to enable for booking purposes, the Form section. You can add fields tailored to your needs and as usual, customize the design.

Now, for business related apps, you will find more features you can install in our Add-Ons store. This is where you can activate the Loyalty Card Add-On for instance.

Note that it is tied to the Authentication feature and is available with our Advanced plan only.

Once the Add-On is installed a new Business tab will show in your back office menu.

From there, you can edit the settings as well as the design of your loyalty program. From selecting a template to customizing the icons for the points, the colors and more.

Almost there! Two more elements to add before your app is ready!

5. Launch screen and app icon

The launch screen is the first thing users will see when opening your app (before the Home). It will be displayed for a few seconds while your app’s content is loading (in a browser as well). To make a good first impression, pay attention to the specifications of the different screen sizes, to ensure optimum display.

For the app icon, which will be shown on the home screen of users, you also need to comply with different dimensions, for the different operating systems and for web app specifics (such as the favicon). Creating the right app icon can be tricky as you have very little room for creativity, plus it needs to be self explanatory. For instance, you might need to tweak your logo somewhat, so that it adapts to a square format, and don’t forget to enter the name of your app.

Your work isn’t done after your customers have completed their transactions. Now start the logistic management of these transactions. Having a seamless process allows you to stay competitive, provide a great customer experience, therefore, building loyalty and driving conversions.  

This is where our public APIs can help you unlock the power of automation. They enable you to leverage various technologies so you can improve cost-efficiency and customer experience.

The Benefits of APIs in Logistics

APIs are commonly used by companies to facilitate the seamless flow of information between their different suppliers or create automation between their departments.

We’ve already covered many of the benefits of using APIs in previous articles , including how to use them with your Facebook shop . Here’s a little reminder of some key advantages of using API integration in your Shopping App.

API Integrations Improve Operational Cost-Efficiency

It allows you to create automated workflows to eliminate the need to manually transfer data between software platforms — a task that is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and can lead to errors.

It also allows for more flexibility and customization.  You can set up your processes to exactly meet your business needs and make changes quickly. 

API Integrations Improve Customer Experience

Nowadays, consumers are more and more exigent. With the constant use of smartphone, having pretty everything available to be purchased online, people expect almost instant gratification. No one wants to wait a long time for their online orders anymore. Thanks to API integration, you can process orders faster, plan better, avoid errors, and therefore provide a great customer experience. 

Example of use of Dallas Passport public API for logistic management

These use cases are all examples from current clients. If you would like to use one of these examples on your Shopping App, please send a request to our support team. It will then be redirected to Service Plus that handles this type of request.)

1- Synchronization between 2 platforms

Here, the public API has been used to synchronize the catalog between 2

platforms. Our client, Scarpato (an Italian bakery)  already has a Woo Commerce website and needed a solution to manage the stocks between the 2 platforms. Thanks to the API, stocks and product details are now synchronized. The owner can now easily manage all their orders and stock levels without having to manually update the stocks on each platform. They gain precious time and avoid out-of-stock errors in fulfilling the orders. 

2- Order printing (restaurant kitchen)

This is the perfect example of the use of API for restaurants. You can send information related to new orders directly to the thermal printers in your kitchen. Thanks to the public API, a connection is possible between 2 systems. The public API is in charge of recovering the data linked to an order, the software used by the restaurant to process them to manage the printing of tickets.

3- Slack Notifications

For Jacky, the owner of a local restaurant, le Chale , it was important to be quickly notified of every new order and be able to act on it quickly. The solution was to have his shopping app connected to Slack.

Each new order placed sends the information on a dedicated slack channel allowing the owner to have an almost instantaneous view of the orders. He can then, via the notification, have access to the back-office to

manage the order. 

4 – Automation of orders extraction

For Central TD , an internal restaurant providing meals for the employees of a large company, efficiently managing the preparation of all the dishes is crucial. Their solution was the edition of several Excel files summarizing all the orders according to different criteria. For example, the type of dish, orders over a given period. This allows seamless management of the dishes to be prepared for the day and a better organization of stocks and less waste. 

The reseller program allows you to create unlimited apps to be published on three different platforms: the web with a Progressive Web App, the Google Play Store with a native Android app and the App Store with a native iOS app.

With more than 500 features and 140 extensions, Dallas Passport allows you to target a wide range of customers, with content management apps and eCommerce apps. Today, we will see how to sell an app to an association.

1. Identify potential customers

• Environmental protection
• Political associations
• Cultural associations
• Charities
• Sports associations
• Think tanks

2. Key features

To win over the customers we mentioned earlier, you need to know and master the key features to use for association apps. Here are the most important features to use:

Public agenda

Use the Dallas Passport CMS, including an Agenda section to publish events organized by the association. The public agenda enables the association to announce and promote upcoming events, such as meetings, conferences, workshops, training courses, festivals or special activities. This enables association members and interested people to find out about dates, times and details of events.

Manage an editorial team

By granting access to active members of the association, you can set up a real editorial team, with people in charge of producing and publishing articles, others videos, etc. This ensures strong involvement of association members and the production of regular content for app users.

Geo-located users

With a native app, users can be geolocated. This makes it possible to find out where they are, and inform them of events taking place close to where they live. Well-informed, they will be able to become more involved in the day-to-day life of the association..

Live audio and video

Give your customer the opportunity to broadcast live audio or video with our dedicated features. A beach clean-up operation for an environmental protection association? This action can be filmed live and broadcasted to all app users!

Push notifications

Use push notifications to alert users to the association’s latest news, thereby strengthening engagement with both the app and the association itself.

Coming soon: fund-raising

It will soon be possible to raise funds via the app through third-party platforms such as “Buy me a coffee” or Donately. Use this feature to ensure that every user contributes to the association’s development, or that every member pays their membership fee.

3. Selling points

Here are the arguments you can put forward to convince your customer of the usefulness of an application for an association:

Share your convictions

The application is a wonderful tool for sharing the beliefs that underpin the association with the community and all its users. It’s also a way of bringing together people who share these convictions, and of convincing new people of the validity of the association’s objectives, whatever the field.

Spread knowledge

The application is also a tool for spreading knowledge. For example, if you’re an environmental association, the application can be used to publish scientific articles, meetings reports and so on. The aim is to share useful information with users and raise their awareness of the issues raised by the association. For this, an app is essential, as people get information using their smartphones.

Grow the community

Having an app is a way of growing the community and support for the association by ensuring that it is accessible to as many people as possible. To do this, we offer three publishing platforms: the Web, the Google Play Store and the App Store.

Accessibility

A mobile application gives association members and the user community easy access to reports, documents, events and other resources wherever they are, whenever they want.

Receive donations

The app will be seen as a means of increasing the association’s funds to finance projects of all kinds.

With Dallas Passport you can create a lot of different apps, we offer over 500 features.

So, you can target many different sectors. You’ll find in this article a few good practices to sell an app to a restaurant. Since the Covid health crisis, the restaurant industry is changing. And this opens a lot of opportunities for you.

For restaurants and the catering industry, an app can have several functions. It can be transactional (Shopping Apps) or it can be promotional (Classic App). If your client’s goal is just to promote their restaurant, we advise you to choose to create a Classic app. If on the other hand, your client wants to do take-away sales (or delivery), it would be best to opt for an app where the end customers can choose products and validate an order. You will need to create a Shopping App in this case.

Here are the main options to put forward to sell an app for a restaurant. 

1. Classic apps

The CMS (Content Management System):

The CMS part will be the most important for a restaurant that wants to communicate through an app.

First of all, the “Articles” will allow you to talk about the specificities and the history of the restaurant, but also to add its menu. We advise you to give access to the back-office to your customer so they can edit these articles. Some restaurant owners make regular changes to their menu or recipes and will feel more comfortable if they can update their menu themselves. Moreover, the articles of the CMS part are all the more important if the restaurant owner also decides to publish their PWA (Web App), it will allow them to improve their indexing on search engines. 

In addition to the articles, the CMS also offers maps. It should always be easy to find a restaurant. Some customers may abandon the idea of going there if the restaurant is not easily accessible. Moreover, with the Map option, the end-user will be able to be geolocated via their smartphone and find the way to the restaurant very easily. A restaurant owner who owns several establishments will be even more interested in this option since it’s possible to add several points on the map.

The “Form” option can be interesting in 2 ways for a restaurant. First, it can simply be used as a contact form for any request. But for a restaurant that does catering services or events, it can allow them to receive requests for these services directly from the app and create quotes.

The “Calendar” section will also be very useful for a restaurant that often organizes theme parties. It can be updated regularly and is a very attractive tool to attract customers to your restaurant.

Finally, the “Video” section will allow restaurant owners to show their savoir-faire and highlight their establishment. A video is very attractive to the customers because they can feel much more the atmosphere which reigns in the restaurant than on photos. The restaurant owner can also show their kitchens while they prepare dishes or even create a buzz with a chef offering little recipes or culinary tips.

User management: Even if a restaurant’s first goal is not to build a community, it can create a user part for its loyal customers. These customers will, for example, have access to certain parts of the app that are not accessible to non-registered people. For example, they can create a specific “Calendar” section for private parties or previews. Or they could reserve access to the chef’s recipes for members only. 

Thanks to this option, restaurateurs can give an “exclusive” aspect to the people who subscribed to the app. The goal, in addition to creating buzz, is to segment their clientele to send push notifications or give them access to exclusive promos. Moreover, another option can be added to the user management. It is the “Geofencing”. This module is used to send a notification to the user of the app when they come within a certain geographical radius. When one of the users of the app enters the neighborhood of the restaurant they can receive the special of the day for example. This can bring in a few more covers during the day.

Couponing and Loyalty Card: These 2 add-ons (paid) are really dedicated to customer loyalty. Couponing allows you to create coupons (discount or free dessert for example). These coupons will be incentives for customers to come back to the establishment. The coupons can be used to introduce new products or new dishes to customers. 

The loyalty card as its name indicates is used to retain loyal customers by offering them discounts or gifts after accumulating points. It is simply the loyalty card with stamps which has been used for a long time but in digital version. It is more effective than the paper version. Almost nobody uses it anymore and a loyalty card in an app will give the establishment a much more modern image. This loyalty card is perfectly customizable in terms of the gift offered or the number of points to access the gift.

Push notifications: The ultimate mobile app feature. Push notifications are the most read messages by smartphone users. Push is perfectly integrated into the interface and design of the smartphone. And on top of that, users give their approval to receive the notifications. So they don’t consider pushes as spam and are even waiting for these notifications. And thanks to Dallas Passport a restaurant manager will be able to send pushes for a lot of reasons: a new dish, a new menu, new hours, a new video, or even to promote a coupon! It is a very effective marketing tool that will seduce restaurant owners who have suffered a lot from the various restrictions recently. However, be careful to use this tool sparingly. If you send more than one notification per day, usually users get bored and may unsubscribe.

Statistics: With Dallas Passport, everything is tracked to see which marketing actions are the most effective. You can also see the number of downloads, the platforms used by customers (iOS or Android) and the geographical locations of users. If you want to go further in tracking statistics, you can synchronize your client’s app with Google Analytics. This will make it easier to implement the best strategies to make the app a success.

2. Shopping Apps

If your customer’s primary goal is not communication but transaction, you will need to create an eCommerce app. This kind of app is mostly used for take-out. 

Some options are common to both eCommerce and Classic Apps. You can take advantage of the “Article” part of the CMS, the form, and the Maps. They will have the same functions as the Classic app: highlighting content. There is no video section, but it is possible to add one or more videos in an article.

On the other hand in eCommerce apps, it is of course possible to take payments and many other things that can help a restaurant to do take-out.

OffLine Payment: Whether your client is doing takeout or Click and Collect (to be picked up at the restaurant by the customer), they regularly receive payments in check or cash. This type of payment doesn’t normally make sense in the eCommerce world, but for restaurant owners who sell takeout it’s an option they’ll appreciate. They will be able to keep their usual way of doing business. The end customer validates their transaction and chooses not to pay in the app but rather when they pick up their order.

Local delivery: In a classic eCommerce app or site one usually has country or worldwide delivery zones. A restaurant owner, if they deliver meals, usually does not go beyond their city. So there is an option in Dallas Passport that allows you to choose delivery zones by zip code, which will be a great help for those businesses that operate on a local scale. 

Click And Collect: Of course, we thought about delivery, but we also know that some restaurant owners don’t have a delivery service. They just do take-out that customers come to pick up in the establishment even if in most cases they do both delivery and take-out). In both cases, Dallas Passport meets their need. With the free “Click and Collect” add-on, the final customer places their order, decides to pay online or not, and picks up it directly at the restaurant. This is a very interesting feature for this industry because they are used to receiving orders from regular customers. Everything is usually done by phone, there can be mistakes and for small structures, it disrupts the organization to receive orders by phone. In this case, the restaurant owner concentrates on their savoir-faire and the app takes the orders for them. In addition, this option can attract new customers and thus increase the restaurant’s sales. 

Delivery slots: This option is a must-have for restaurant owners who do takeout. In addition to being able to save time with the app and avoid a whole bunch of phone calls to receive orders, they will be able to choose the time slots at which they want to deliver or receive orders. So if a restaurant is closed one day in the week, its customers will not be able to place an order. This avoids many disappointments. Moreover, thanks to this option, the restaurant owner can limit the orders on certain slots so as not to be caught short and not to be able to supply. For example, they can decide to create 15 mn or 30 mn slots. And decide to receive a maximum of 10 orders per 15-minute slot. This way, they will manage their kitchen better and customers will not be disappointed by a long delivery time.

Buy again: Many orders in restaurants are often the same. Some people like to explore new flavors, others who regularly order from the same restaurant have a favorite dish or menu. With the “Buy Again” option, restaurant customers will be able to save time when placing an order. They will be able to retrieve an old cart that they had already validated. Then they can either modify it or send it as is and place an order much faster. This kind of option boost sales because it offers more convenience to the final customer (no more waiting on the phone for example…).

Quick check-out: This feature is very useful if you do click and collect. Indeed, when you place an order on a smartphone it’s easy. But if there are many unnecessary steps to validate, it becomes annoying. For example, you have to enter your address when you are going to pick up your meal at the restaurant. Thanks to the “Quick Check-out” option, this step is skipped. Indeed, if the customer chooses the “Pick-up ” option, they will not need to enter their address unnecessarily to finalize the order. The goal again is to make the buying process smoother and therefore, generate more business.

Discounts: It is possible to create special promotions in eCommerce apps that are not the same as in Classic apps. You can choose to offer a discount from a certain amount ordered or happy hours. And of course, just like on Classic apps, these coupons can be sent via Push notifications to give your offer even more chance of success.

Client list: You don’t have to register in the app to place an order. But as soon as someone validates an order in the app, they are automatically added to the client list. If you have regular customers, you will also have people who only place a few orders. You can, thanks to the listing, decide to do a special promotion for certain customers and thus, encourage them to order again in the restaurant app.

Public API: If your client wants to integrate the app’s order management with their checkout system, it will be possible to integrate it through our public API for Shopping apps. This way, they can choose to receive orders directly on their kitchen printer for example, and avoid going to the back-office or having a laptop handy. All this makes order processing even easier and more efficient for restaurant owners.

Statistics: In addition to the statistics already offered in the Classic Apps, you will also find all the details on your sales and the products that sell the most. An indispensable tool to do sales analysis and help your client to optimize their app.

 The foodservice industry has been greatly impacted by the current health circumstances. It is a sector that is dynamic but changing. Covid’s pandemic resulted in a change in mindset in terms of technological tools. That’s why as an App Reseller, it’s in your best interest to look for these types of customers, it’s the right time. Moreover, as we have just seen, Dallas Passport gives you a lot of features that will surely convince restaurant managers.

With more than 500 features and 140 extensions, Dallas Passport allows you to target a wide range of customers, with content management apps and eCommerce apps.

Today, we will see how to sell an app to manage appointments booking. Customers now prefer to book appointments via an app, because it’s much quicker and more convenient than calling on the phone! Plus, there are fewer scheduling errors with an app.

1. Identify potential customers

• Hairdressers
• Barbers
• Beauty salons
• Aesthetic salons
• Spa treatments
• Dental practice

2. Key features

To win over the customers we mentioned earlier, you need to know and master the key features to use for appointments booking apps. Here are the main features to use:

Appointments booking

This feature allows your customers to manage their appointment booking in their app. The “appointment booking” section is synchronized with your customer’s Google calendar. So as soon as an appointment is booked in your app, it’s visible in their Google calendar. Your customer receives an email informing them that an appointment has been booked in his app. The user, who chooses the day and time according to the criteria your customer has set, also receives a confirmation email. In addition, you can add multiple “appointment booking” sections to your app.

A complete content management system

The Dallas Passport CMS (content management system) is a useful tool for your customer, enabling them to present their catalog of services, the services they offer and their prices. Users then have all the information they need to choose the services best suited to their needs.

Loyalty program

A loyalty program can be set up within the app to boost business and reward the most loyal users, who will then be willing to leave a positive review following their visit to your customer’s establishment.

Form section

The contact form enables your customer to collect user requests and profile information. In this way, app users can suggest improvements, respond to surveys or make suggestions for services they’d like to see available in the future.

Push notifications

As a service provider, it’s very important for your customer to maintain contact with customers and prospects. With Dallas Passport, you can give them the opportunity to build a solid and diversified communication strategy: automatic, manual or even geolocalized push notifications, etc.… to communicate the right message, at the right time, in the right way.

About section

In addition to making appointments and presenting your services, the app is the ideal place to introduce yourself. The About section allows your customer to tell us more about themselves, their history, their know-how… To tell the story of who it is and make users want to choose it. Opt for a Contact section and a Map section to enable customers and future customers to contact your customer and find them easily.

3. Selling points

Better management of your schedule

The advantage of an app is that your customer no longer has to worry about making an appointment over the phone. As a result, they can focus on their core business and be more efficient. It also means fewer booking errors. Everything is automated and managed in the customer’s app, enabling better organization and more efficient work, with peace of mind.

A perfect customer experience

We have designed this feature with design and user experience at its core. It’s fluid and intuitive. It’s very easy for an app user to book a slot. They then receive an automatic confirmation email and can even cancel the appointment if necessary.

Managing several calendars in the app

If your customer offers different services that require different schedules, this is not a problem. You can add as many “appointment booking” sections to the application as you like.

Share customers’ reviews

Customers are the best asset: by sharing customer reviews in your app, your customer will be able to showcase their business and the quality of their work. It’s a way of strengthening the commitment of existing customers and gaining the trust of new ones.

Building loyalty

An in-app loyalty program can boost business and reward the most loyal customers with rewards, such as a free service.

Branding

The key argument for convincing your customer: their services are at users’ fingertips with a mobile app. Your brand image is thus reinforced, thanks to an app available on all types of support: the web, Android’s Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

 

1. Choose a theme

Choosing a theme is the first step to create your Beautiful App. In your back office, you will find a choice of over 25 different themes (and counting) created by our designers. The theme you choose is just a starting point, you’ll be able to customize and adjust its settings completely.

We recommend picking a style which is close enough to the color scheme or the look and feel you want for your Beautiful App. For instance, for this app, we started with the theme “Green”.

2. Build your Home

The Home is the first screen users will see when opening your app. It is therefore an important feature of your app, both visually and practically. With GoodBarber 4.0, the Home lets you choose which content to highlight upon opening the app. It also lets you display links towards the primary destinations making up your app.

The modular home introduced by GoodBarber 4.0 is made up of two different kinds of widgets, content widgets and navigation widgets (links)—a total of 66 widgets has been developed so far. Templates associated with widgets have a mobile, tablet and desktop declination.

Here you can see that we’ve added our first widget, a Content widget, to feature an mCMS articles section (our restaurant’s menu):

After selecting a template (Banner > Minimal), we customized the font used to display the Title as well as the number of items displayed, from 3 to 4.

Now, let’s add another Content widget to feature our Events, and select a template for it, List > Card.

We then proceeded to add Links, the first one towards our About section:

As you can see, according to your choice of template (here, Banner > SmallSlideshow) it is possible to show a button and edit several design settings (the font, the copy, etc.):

We added another Navigation widget with another set of links. We created a distinct widget in order to enable a different template, List > VisualIcon. As you can see you can feature internal links (towards sections), as well as external links (towards your Facebook page for instance):

Our Home now features a total of 4 widgets.

3. Build your Menu

With GoodBarber 4.0, the Menu is used for secondary navigation within your app. Your Home already provides points of entry towards the sections of your choice, as well as call to actions, which is why you can even choose the option to not display a Menu at all. If you do choose to enable a Menu (or Browsing mode in your back office), you can choose between 7 different types of “menus” or browsing modes, to further distribute traffic within your app. 

Building the menu can be achieved independently of the number of sections in the app for complete control over the navigation of your app. Your menu can feature links and shortcuts, to point towards destinations, and titles and separators, to prioritize information within the menu (these two serve design purposes).

Here we’ve selected the Slate template: 

We’ve added the restaurant’s logo in the Header along with Shortcuts (Loyalty Card, Settings, Call), we’ve featured our main sections in the Body, and a Copyright in the Footer.

4. Add your Content

Up until now, using the Sample content provided in the app can be a convenient way to achieve a great design without having an empty app. But here are a few examples of how to proceed when you’re ready to start adding your own content. 

• Here we used an mCMS articles section to display the restaurant’s menu. We then customized the list of articles view, choosing a full screen display template (template n°8).

• Another key feature you might want to enable for booking purposes, the Form section. You can add fields tailored to your needs and as usual, customize the design.

Now, for business related apps, you will find more features you can install in our Add-Ons store. This is where you can activate the Loyalty Card Add-On for instance.

Note that it is tied to the Authentication feature and is available with our Advanced plan only.

Once the Add-On is installed a new Business tab will show in your back office menu.

From there, you can edit the settings as well as the design of your loyalty program. From selecting a template to customizing the icons for the points, the colors and more.

Almost there! Two more elements to add before your app is ready!

5. Launch screen and app icon

The launch screen is the first thing users will see when opening your app (before the Home). It will be displayed for a few seconds while your app’s content is loading (in a browser as well). To make a good first impression, pay attention to the specifications of the different screen sizes, to ensure optimum display.

For the app icon, which will be shown on the home screen of users, you also need to comply with different dimensions, for the different operating systems and for web app specifics (such as the favicon). Creating the right app icon can be tricky as you have very little room for creativity, plus it needs to be self explanatory. For instance, you might need to tweak your logo somewhat, so that it adapts to a square format, and don’t forget to enter the name of your app.

Your work isn’t done after your customers have completed their transactions. Now start the logistic management of these transactions. Having a seamless process allows you to stay competitive, provide a great customer experience, therefore, building loyalty and driving conversions.  

This is where our public APIs can help you unlock the power of automation. They enable you to leverage various technologies so you can improve cost-efficiency and customer experience.

The Benefits of APIs in Logistics

APIs are commonly used by companies to facilitate the seamless flow of information between their different suppliers or create automation between their departments.

We’ve already covered many of the benefits of using APIs in previous articles , including how to use them with your Facebook shop . Here’s a little reminder of some key advantages of using API integration in your Shopping App.

API Integrations Improve Operational Cost-Efficiency

It allows you to create automated workflows to eliminate the need to manually transfer data between software platforms — a task that is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and can lead to errors.

It also allows for more flexibility and customization.  You can set up your processes to exactly meet your business needs and make changes quickly. 

API Integrations Improve Customer Experience

Nowadays, consumers are more and more exigent. With the constant use of smartphone, having pretty everything available to be purchased online, people expect almost instant gratification. No one wants to wait a long time for their online orders anymore. Thanks to API integration, you can process orders faster, plan better, avoid errors, and therefore provide a great customer experience. 

Example of use of Dallas Passport public API for logistic management

These use cases are all examples from current clients. If you would like to use one of these examples on your Shopping App, please send a request to our support team. It will then be redirected to Service Plus that handles this type of request.)

1- Synchronization between 2 platforms

Here, the public API has been used to synchronize the catalog between 2

platforms. Our client, Scarpato (an Italian bakery)  already has a Woo Commerce website and needed a solution to manage the stocks between the 2 platforms. Thanks to the API, stocks and product details are now synchronized. The owner can now easily manage all their orders and stock levels without having to manually update the stocks on each platform. They gain precious time and avoid out-of-stock errors in fulfilling the orders. 

2- Order printing (restaurant kitchen)

This is the perfect example of the use of API for restaurants. You can send information related to new orders directly to the thermal printers in your kitchen. Thanks to the public API, a connection is possible between 2 systems. The public API is in charge of recovering the data linked to an order, the software used by the restaurant to process them to manage the printing of tickets.

3- Slack Notifications

For Jacky, the owner of a local restaurant, le Chale , it was important to be quickly notified of every new order and be able to act on it quickly. The solution was to have his shopping app connected to Slack.

Each new order placed sends the information on a dedicated slack channel allowing the owner to have an almost instantaneous view of the orders. He can then, via the notification, have access to the back-office to

manage the order. 

4 – Automation of orders extraction

For Central TD , an internal restaurant providing meals for the employees of a large company, efficiently managing the preparation of all the dishes is crucial. Their solution was the edition of several Excel files summarizing all the orders according to different criteria. For example, the type of dish, orders over a given period. This allows seamless management of the dishes to be prepared for the day and a better organization of stocks and less waste. 

The reseller program allows you to create unlimited apps to be published on three different platforms: the web with a Progressive Web App, the Google Play Store with a native Android app and the App Store with a native iOS app.

With more than 500 features and 140 extensions, Dallas Passport allows you to target a wide range of customers, with content management apps and eCommerce apps. Today, we will see how to sell an app to an association.

1. Identify potential customers

• Environmental protection
• Political associations
• Cultural associations
• Charities
• Sports associations
• Think tanks

2. Key features

To win over the customers we mentioned earlier, you need to know and master the key features to use for association apps. Here are the most important features to use:

Public agenda

Use the Dallas Passport CMS, including an Agenda section to publish events organized by the association. The public agenda enables the association to announce and promote upcoming events, such as meetings, conferences, workshops, training courses, festivals or special activities. This enables association members and interested people to find out about dates, times and details of events.

Manage an editorial team

By granting access to active members of the association, you can set up a real editorial team, with people in charge of producing and publishing articles, others videos, etc. This ensures strong involvement of association members and the production of regular content for app users.

Geo-located users

With a native app, users can be geolocated. This makes it possible to find out where they are, and inform them of events taking place close to where they live. Well-informed, they will be able to become more involved in the day-to-day life of the association..

Live audio and video

Give your customer the opportunity to broadcast live audio or video with our dedicated features. A beach clean-up operation for an environmental protection association? This action can be filmed live and broadcasted to all app users!

Push notifications

Use push notifications to alert users to the association’s latest news, thereby strengthening engagement with both the app and the association itself.

Coming soon: fund-raising

It will soon be possible to raise funds via the app through third-party platforms such as “Buy me a coffee” or Donately. Use this feature to ensure that every user contributes to the association’s development, or that every member pays their membership fee.

3. Selling points

Here are the arguments you can put forward to convince your customer of the usefulness of an application for an association:

Share your convictions

The application is a wonderful tool for sharing the beliefs that underpin the association with the community and all its users. It’s also a way of bringing together people who share these convictions, and of convincing new people of the validity of the association’s objectives, whatever the field.

Spread knowledge

The application is also a tool for spreading knowledge. For example, if you’re an environmental association, the application can be used to publish scientific articles, meetings reports and so on. The aim is to share useful information with users and raise their awareness of the issues raised by the association. For this, an app is essential, as people get information using their smartphones.

Grow the community

Having an app is a way of growing the community and support for the association by ensuring that it is accessible to as many people as possible. To do this, we offer three publishing platforms: the Web, the Google Play Store and the App Store.

Accessibility

A mobile application gives association members and the user community easy access to reports, documents, events and other resources wherever they are, whenever they want.

Receive donations

The app will be seen as a means of increasing the association’s funds to finance projects of all kinds.