Over the past few years, the food industry has grown quickly. The UAE restaurant industry is becoming a hub of opportunity for food businesses. Food retailers are putting more time and money into creating a seamless customer experience across a variety of media. These advancements had a significant impact on consumer behavior.
After the slap of the pandemic, the people in the UAE have become more health-conscious. The side effects of digital transformation are widely seen in the restaurant industry in the UAE.
Restaurants are adopting the use of technology in order to increase their sales and attract more customers.
For example, the UAE has launched its first robotic cafe called Robocafe. The restaurant does not have any human intervention and is completely run by German-manufactured robots. So, let’s have a look at the change that consumers are going through.
The major change that was brought about by the pandemic was the boost in online shopping.
Online food delivery apps like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Grubhub, etc., have seen significant growth. As most of the jobs were turned online during and after the pandemic, people were inclined more towards ordering food online.
As people are easily influenced by social media, restaurants in the UAE should focus more on promoting their dishes and discounts through social media. Adopting digital transformation can help restaurants attract more customers. As a restaurant, you can also run an ad campaign through social media.
People nowadays are moving toward value-based purchasing, so maintaining the quality of your food is very crucial to winning in the market.
You should deliver quality dishes consistently to be at the top of your competitors. Let’s have a look at how restaurants should adopt this change.
Restaurants should familiarise themselves with the changing behavior of customers in the UAE. Restaurants should change their operating environment and systems digitally in order to match consumer standards. For example, Royal Express is a restaurant in Dubai that is dedicated to the glory days of colonial India’s rail travel. This restaurant is concept-based and is trending in the market.
Restaurants should be more creative with their promotion methods. Instead of simple packaging, they should use attractive and uniquely designed packets to gain customers’ attention. Gaining consumers’ attention should be the main goal of restaurants. Also, one golden rule that never changes is maintaining the quality of your food.
What happens when restaurants ignore online reviews?
There is a well-known quote in the hospitality industry—”The customer is always right.” According to the study of online restaurant reviews, consumers are highly influenced by what people say about a place online.
The information provided by reviews helps consumers choose cleaner restaurants. People around the globe are using machine learning to find out about the hygiene signals in reviews of New York City restaurants.
Machine Learning For Dining Out: Most cities maintain grading programs to calculate restaurant hygiene. According to the food handling regulations, violations are seen by words like “nauseous” and “sick”.
Crowdsourcing Isn’t Perfect: Crowdsourcing has limits, and it is important for reviewing sites. According to the research team, hygiene can vary widely based on the new management and staff. Also, reviews are not representative of all experiences.
The Magic of Monitoring: Monitoring methods can be applied to other industries with comparable review sites. Glassdoor is a great forum to discuss the quality of jobs with employees and workers. The regulators focusing on labor conditions could look into the set of data to understand what works the best.
Also, the monitoring helps customers choose the best restaurant that fits into their budget and requirements. These monitoring techniques help restaurants understand consumer behavior and act accordingly.
Culture is passed down from one generation to the next, with each adding to, altering, and preserving some of this transmitted culture. This manifests in human behavior and actions, and it has an impact on the decisions and characteristics of people. People from the same culture have many similar beliefs, practices, and values. These cultural aspects are all acknowledged as having a significant impact on consumer behavior and decision-making.
In order to develop internal awareness and knowledge and meet or surpass internal customer expectations, businesses always strive to learn more about their consumers and the various multicultural actors in the market. The restaurant industry needs to follow the same practice.
The strategy to attract more customers comes from instinct rather than research. Sometimes restaurants just ignore the basic problems associated with consumer needs. Being aware is more important than brainstorming and trying new things without considering the feedback.
Restaurants nowadays are looking to adopt trends in order to attract customers’ attention. It is important for a restaurant to understand what customers want and how they perceive the idea of eating good food.
How Can You Get Generation Z to Try Your Food?
The Gen Z generation tends towards what’s trending in the market when it comes to trying a new thing. The thoughts and actions of this generation are driven by social media trends. This generation of technology-driven human beings believes in getting things quickly. Restaurants can use last mile delivery software to make their deliveries quick and fast.
Restaurants should adopt the changing behavior of Gen Z consumers. The names of dishes and menus can be created keeping the slang taste of the modern generation in mind. You can also promote your restaurant using social media ad campaigns.
Conclusion: In order to adapt to changing consumer expectations, restaurants in the UAE should implement a few of these changes. Additionally, restaurants should consider their business model for a high ROI and higher customer satisfaction in light of the new behavioral patterns that have emerged following COVID19 that have altered customer behavior.
