Tips to promote your Curbside Pickup Service

Eric: "Because this location (we also have 2 full service restaurants) is strictly carry out, we were able to remain open under new safety guidelines mandated by the Governor. But, switching to exclusively curbside pickup, led to several incremental changes in the way we handle payments and delivery. 

Initially, we tried to take payments over the phone when customers would call at 11 AM to order crabs for later in the day. But, due to taking upwards of 100 orders between 11 AM and 12 Noon, we started getting phone numbers and calling customers back to take payments through our POS system - this effectively doubled our phone interaction with each customer. Then, as customers would arrive to pick up their crabs, they would call to let us know they were in the parking lot -- now we are talking to each customer three times for each order. This became untenable as it overwhelmed the 3 phone lines we have and kept us from taking additional orders later in the day.

I quickly ordered portable wifi enabled credit card terminals so we could take payments in the parking lot eliminating a phone call for payments. We also added additional staff to work in the parking lot, greeting customers in the parking lot and radioing in which customers were picking up ... eliminating the 3rd phone call.

We have had a Shopify website for ordering crabs and crab cakes to be shipped out via FedEx for about 2 years, we never really focused on that part of the business and hadn't pushed it as a revenue channel. I was discussing the issues we were having related to the Coronavirus Pandemic with my wife and she suggested we use the website for online ordering for curbside pick-up. At first I was a little skeptical because of how our crab inventory changes so rapidly and with 43 years of doing things over the phone, I wasn't sure how our customers would react.

Over the course of a few evenings, we looked at different solutions to do online ordering and we kept coming back to Zapiet. Zapiet seemed to really be the only viable solution for us. I was impressed with the functionality of Zapiet and the reviews about their customer service were excellent -- not true with some other providers. It took a little while for us to be able to get on board with Zapiet, I am certain it was because many other businesses were facing the same challenges navigating the pandemic. Once we were on board, we were off and running!