Dive Brief:
- Toast is adding branded mobile app design and SMS marketing to the services it offers to restaurants, the tech firm said Tuesday.
- Restaurants can use Toast’s branded mobile app tool to create customized iOS and Android apps. The tech company said branded apps are more effective than websites at driving repeat traffic.
- Tech firms are competing to retain restaurant clients by expanding the solutions they offer to businesses. DoorDash, for instance, added its own mobile app design tool last month, while Grubhub recently added recommendations at the checkout.
Dive Insight:
Toast said restaurants can employ their own color scheme, logo and branding when designing an app. The apps built with its tool have features designed to increase average check and drive orders to specific items, such as suggesting previous orders and upselling consumers. Restaurants can also send push notifications and set limited-time discounts or promotions through the apps, which will integrate with Toast’s loyalty and marketing products.
In addition to the app building tool, Toast announced text message-based marketing, citing internal research that indicates a majority of consumers are open to SMS communications from restaurants.
The SMS marketing feature includes tools meant to build subscriber lists, such as “a dashboard of easy-to-use templates like customer QR code print-outs, email and social media templates, a text-to-join prompt.” The prompts mean restaurants can push consumers to sign up for text marketing if they interact with a restaurant through other Toast channels.
Toast also said its SMS marketing tool has a suggestive text feature, which it described as “AI.” The suggestive text feature is powered by a third-party large language model (LLM), a Toast spokesperson wrote in an email to Restaurant Dive.
“When used with the Toast email marketing tool, for example, an automated draft email based on the user’s chosen criteria will populate,” the spokesperson said.
LLMs, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are predictive text algorithms that generate a set of text based on what the program anticipates a written response to a prompt may look like. Because of this, LLMs frequently produce inaccurate information, euphemistically referred to as hallucinations.
“Users are responsible for the final product, and should always review the email content carefully, including for bias, harmful or offensive content, illegal content, inaccuracies or other errors or other issues,” the spokesperson said.
One operator who used the SMS marketing tech said in Toast’s press release that it was useful for driving traffic.
“If it’s a slow day, I’ll send a promo like ‘$5 off your bill’ or ‘free appetizer if you show this message.’ I know it is working because I see people come in and redeem these offers the same day,” said Jason Wolbransky, general manager at Dog & Bull Taphouse and Kitchen, a single-location restaurant in Pennsylvania.
The Toast spokesperson wrote that the Branded Mobile App is part of its Digital Storefront Suite at the Premium level, which is $299 a month. SMS marketing and the text suggestion tool are part of its Marketing Essentials Suite, which is priced at $185 monthly.
Major restaurant tech providers are offering more services to their customers, like DoorDash’s app design tool. These tools help tech companies gradually create an all-in-one service package for restaurants. In the long run, this could drive consolidation among restaurant tech providers if feature-heavy, all-in-one platforms outcompete companies focused on narrow solutions.
