Reflecting on Olo's first-ever Partner Summit at the Chicago Athletic Association this week, I am humbled by the amazing community of partners and brands Olo has the honor of serving and supporting.
At FSTEC last week, our team spoke directly with restaurant leaders about some of the industry's most pressing issues and opportunities. Here are five topics everyone was talking about that will play a critical role in the coming year.
Long before joining Olo, I was a maître d' and manager for 4.5 years at Searsucker, an upscale full-service restaurant owned by celebrity chef Brian Malarkey. Running the door was like a high-stakes game of Tetris.
Treat brands are a unique subset of restaurants. Starting with the obvious: they don’t serve a traditional meal with protein, side, and drink. They sell donuts, cakes, smoothies, cookies, ice cream, etc.
We recently teamed up with Restaurant Business Magazine to host a webinar, “3 Growth Strategies to Help Emerging Brands Thrive.” Leaders from Dave’s Hot Chicken and bartaco shared ways to accelerate restaurant growth—including how to build a consolidated tech stack that scales with your brand and innovative ways to use guest data.
There's a reason Hallmark plays Christmas movies in July: the holiday season is rapidly approaching and anticipation is building. Preparation also begins early in the restaurant industry, where weekly store sales can easily 10x with holiday catering.
To celebrate 19 years of innovation, Olo rolled out 19 future-focused product enhancements in Q2 2024 to help restaurant brands increase orders, streamline operations, and improve guest experiences.
Coffee companies are up against it. The market is saturated with coffee shops on just about every corner. Profit margins are tight, teams are lean, and guests have sky-high expectations for speed, convenience, service, consistency, quality, and personalization.
Anyone who has worked in a restaurant, let alone run one, will tell you a healthy amount of paranoia is required to do the job well. Sure, each shift begins with a similar set of to-dos, but it's what's NOT on the checklist or in the steps of service that will catapult a good guest experience to a great one.
June may be winding down, but there's still plenty of time to celebrate Pride. We've compiled a list of Olo customers raising funds to support the LGBTQIA+ community‚ plus, how you can participate. Don't wait to take advantage of these mouthwatering limited-time offers, available through the end of this month.
We recently had the pleasure of hosting a webinar, 5 Ways QSR Brands Can Overcome Labor Challenges, in partnership with QSR Magazine. Leaders from Portillo's Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, and Olo came together to address the elephant in the room: labor.
In March 2021, we created Olo For Good and joined Pledge 1%, committing one percent of our equity, employees’ time, and product to social impact and environmental sustainability causes. Since then, as part of our annual grant process, Olo has given more than $9 million to 17 nonprofit organizations focused on restaurant workers, food insecurity, sustainability, and diversity.
Since joining Olo in early 2020, Nathan Torres has worked his way up from Product Manager for Catering and Switchboard to a Director of Product Management. In his current role, Nathan oversees product managers focused on Olo's Catering+, Expo, and Host solutions, as well as onboarding and invoicing.
Imagine having unlimited time and resources to develop marketing campaigns for every single restaurant guest based on their unique behavior. This is precisely what marketing automation unlocks—it turns one-to-one marketing from an aspiration to a reality.
We created the Olo Community in 2022 after witnessing the spirit of camaraderie at our annual customer conference, Beyond4. We wanted to create a space online for our restaurant customers to exchange knowledge, seek support, influence product development, and network—regardless of time or location and at no additional charge.
Personalization used to be a differentiator. Now, guests expect it. To meet those expectations and drive profitable acquisition, retention, and growth, leading restaurant brands are prioritizing a new metric: guest lifetime value (GLV).
Online ordering has rapidly become table stakes for the restaurant industry. For many brands, it started as a make-or-break decision to weather pandemic shutdowns. The faster you got up and running, the smaller the blow to your bottom line. Whether your restaurant adopted online ordering proactively or reactively, the system that worked for your brand at the beginning of your digital journey may no longer meet the needs of your guests or your business.
In Q1 2024, Olo rolled out 13 major product enhancements across Order, Pay, and Engage to help restaurant operators unlock new revenue streams and create more seamless, convenient guest experiences. Keep scrolling for a deep dive into our three most significant enhancements—how they work, why they matter, and who benefits. Head to the Spring Release page for the complete list of new features and to watch Olo’s product experts unveil them onstage at Beyond4. You’ll also learn about the general av...
Some restaurant brands make social media look effortless. Their posts get dozens of comments, thousands of likes, and, in some cases, millions of views.
On behalf of Team Olo, huge thanks to all who joined us in Palm Springs for our 5th annual Beyond4 customer conference. It was great to see so many familiar faces and form new friendships.
This week at MURTEC, Olo’s Director of Product Marketing, Brooke Heinzmann, received a Top Women in Restaurant Technology “Innovator” Award from Hospitality Technology. The award is presented to forward-thinking women who have positively transformed the food-service technology space by creating or deploying emerging technologies that reimagine how things are done while paving the way for future technologies.
Pre-pandemic, catering was the fastest-growing sales channel in the restaurant industry. While that upward trajectory stalled with COVID-19, catering is back in a big way. In fact, catering business is expected to grow at a rate of 6.2% in the next 8 years, reaching over $124 billion by 2032. The catering boom presents a lucrative opportunity for restaurants to capitalize on evolving consumer behaviors and preferences. It’s no wonder leading brands are investing heavily in the channel.
According to a 2022 survey by MGH, 53% of Millennial TikTok users and 38% of TikTok users from across all generations (approximately 51.8 million people) have visited or ordered from a restaurant after seeing the eatery on the platform. Needless to say, social media has become an essential avenue for finding and attracting new guests—especially those under the age of 40.
Like many remote employees, Giselle Francisco joined Olo in late 2021 with the hope of connecting with coworkers beyond daily Zoom calls and Slack notifications. She quickly found her community in the Oloites of Color employee resource group (ERG). Founded in 2020, Oloites of Color is one of several ERGs at Olo. ERGs are voluntary, employee-led groups that foster a diverse and inclusive workplace. Each group organizes events and initiatives to advance professional development, strengthen interna...
As annual results come in and 2024 strategies get set, restaurant operators are looking for innovative ways to reach and delight new guests. In Q4 2023, Olo unveiled eight major product enhancements designed to help brands unlock new revenue streams and create more seamless, convenient ordering experiences. Keep scrolling for a deep dive into our three most significant enhancements—how they work, why they matter, and who benefits. For a complete list of new features and to hear what Olo COO Jo L...
High-volume days like the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day present exciting opportunities and unique challenges for restaurants—especially amidst the ongoing labor shortage. To maximize sales and meet the expectations of digital-first guests during peak times, brands must leverage digital solutions that simplify order management, streamline operations, and increase throughput. It all starts with strategic planning. Get your team ready for the rush by following these best practices covering everyth...
Every restaurant brand wants to increase mobile app downloads, but the real challenge is user retention. Research shows the worldwide mobile app retention rate across 31 categories is 25.3% on Day 1, before falling to 5.7% by Day 30.
Dear Friends of Olo - Continuing the momentum of the last few years, 2023 marked another pivotal year for restaurant technology and the restaurant industry. Online ordering for pick-up, where Olo started 18 years ago, is now table stakes for restaurant brands of all sizes. And there's increasing interest in new digital realms like on-premise and drive-thru digital orders, personalized guest engagement, frictionless checkout, AI, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Exciting, isn't it? On the other...
In 2023, Team Olo worked hard to enable hospitality at scale for our restaurant brand customers by releasing 40+ product enhancements across our three product suites: Order, Pay, and Engage.
As we enter 2024, many in the restaurant industry continue to feel the ripple effects of the pandemic. While higher food prices, disrupted supply chains, and a labor shortage pose numerous challenges, increased fraud—in-store and online—is eating away at profit margins when they matter most.
Restaurant mobile apps have quickly evolved from nice-to-have to essential for meeting the needs of digital-first guests. Recent studies have shown 40% of guests prefer to order directly through a restaurant’s website or app.
Our Principal Data Scientist, Mingming Zhang, joined Olo two years ago as part of our acquisition of Wisely. There she led the data science team and earned a 2021 Top Women in Restaurant Technology Award for her work on algorithms that accurately predict restaurant wait times and proprietary natural language processing (NLP) that annotates the sentiment of online restaurant reviews. Before Wisely, Mingming was a Data Science Manager at Domino’s, where she was tasked with projects like combating...
With so many competing priorities—from building brand awareness to acquisition and retention—it can be challenging for restaurant marketers to determine where to start—let alone come up with campaign ideas.
A December 2022 survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association found three in four consumers planned to eat at a restaurant or order takeout during the holidays. Restaurants can capitalize on that demand this season by offering catering.
As a leading end-to-end restaurant platform, we spend a lot of time talking to brands of all sizes about everyday challenges, goals, and what tech investments they’re making to eliminate pain points and deliver hospitality at scale. These conversations drive our year-round product innovations and shed light on what’s new and next for the industry.
In Q3, Olo introduced 11 new features across our three product suites: Order, Pay, and Engage. These customer-driven product enhancements are designed to boost guest acquisition, retention, and operational efficiency.
This week, we’re spotlighting Ray Gallagher, VP & GM Engage. Ray joined Olo as Vice President of Customer Experience in 2021 through our acquisition of Wisely.
Just as restaurant brands aim to provide exceptional hospitality to dine-in guests, it’s equally important to create a consistent guest experience for delivery orders. In other words, off-premise guests should expect the same caliber of service, food quality, ease of ordering and payment, branding, etc. as in-restaurant guests.
Recent headlines in The Wall Street Journal and New York Times about rising credit card fees have stoked confusion and fear among many restaurant brands, which already operate on thin margins.
Olo Founder and CEO Noah Glass recently sat down with Eric Cacciatore of the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast to discuss Olo’s evolution—from a text-message ordering solution to an industry-leading open SaaS platform—and how restaurant brands are leveraging technology to optimize operations, enhance the guest experience, and maximize revenue.
There are a lot of factors outside of a restaurant brand’s control—rising food costs and competition to name a few. And yet, the one thing you can control is the guest experience.
The restaurant industry continues to go through a period of significant transformation, with brands attempting to adapt to changes in guest behavior, staffing shortfalls, and increased pressure on margins.
We recently welcomed a new Chief Operating Officer, Jo Lambert, to Team Olo. Jo has built and transformed global digital products at scale across financial services, media, and technology brands, including American Express, PayPal, Venmo, Verizon Media, and Yahoo.
There’s little room for friction in the world of e-commerce—and that’s even more true in the restaurant industry. After all, guests turn to digital channels for convenience, and there’s no harder time to handle unexpected hurdles than when you’re hungry.
Each quarter, Olo launches a wave of product enhancements to help restaurant brands provide guests with superior hospitality and do more with less. During this year’s Summer Release Event, we unveiled 10 new features across our three product suites: Order, Pay, and Engage.
To remain competitive in the restaurant industry, brands of all sizes and types need to have a strong online presence. A user-friendly website, optimized Google listings, and active social media accounts increase discoverability, drive sales, and help foster long-term guest loyalty.
As a follow-up to our post about why SMS marketing matters for restaurants, we’re diving deeper into why SMS marketing automations work, the anatomy of an effective campaign, and three examples any brand can use to drive engagement and sales.
Consumers have become so accustomed to personalized experiences that 91% of people are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations. While personalization has become table stakes for industries like e-commerce, it remains a competitive advantage within the restaurant industry.
At Olo, we’re continuously investing in growth—within our company and in support of our customers' digital transformation. The newest additions to our leadership team, Denise Cox and Shad Foos, are evidence of that commitment. Denise, our new EVP Customer, brings over 25 years of experience in high-tech customer leadership at Omnicell, Cisco, and NetApp. And Shad, our new EVP Marketing, has dedicated his career to building integrated marketing teams and driving brand strategy at B2B SaaS and B2C...
Now that we’ve broken down the fundamentals of restaurant guest acquisition and shared some winning strategies to test, it’s time to shift focus to retention.
Effective restaurant marketing requires an omnichannel approach to engage guests. And SMS marketing automation—also known as text message marketing—has quickly proven itself to be a valuable tool in a marketer’s tool belt.
Last quarter, we grew our product suite and enhanced our partner ecosystem to enable our customers to do more with less and make every guest feel like a regular. Scroll to learn about our all-new partner program and latest product enhancements—plus, how restaurant brands directly benefit.
Quick recap: In the first installment of our Guide to Restaurant Guest Acquisition, we explained why knowing your current guests is critical for finding and attracting new, high-value guests. Additionally, we covered the three key elements to unlocking those insights: first-party data, a restaurant-specific CRM, and an integrated tech stack.
At Olo, we believe the future of digital hospitality is sustainable. We’re committed to shaping its evolution by aligning our products, resources, and employees to drive positive change and create a more sustainable future.
The right tech stack will enable a restaurant brand to operate more efficiently, drive guest lifetime value (LTV), maximize revenue, and scale. The key to success—and the biggest hurdle—is twofold:
One of the biggest priorities for restaurant marketers is driving a consistent stream of people in the door, to the counter, curbside, etc. In other words, guest acquisition: the process of bringing new guests to your business.
Historically, restaurant leaders won by driving transactions—keeping tabs on cover counts and obsessing over same-store sales. Winning didn’t require that you knew who was dining with you, why, or how often. Some team members knew the guests, but that information didn’t get disseminated to all parts of the business. From a practical perspective, guest data often lives with specific team members, but isn’t brought into finance, marketing, culinary, labor, or real estate decisions.
In the age of social media, why should restaurant marketing teams put their energy, time, and budget into email? Because every marketer’s north star is investing in the channels most likely to drive results.
One of the best ways to ensure guests find your restaurant when looking for places to eat nearby is to keep your local business listings up-to-date and optimized for search engines.
At Olo, everything we do revolves around the belief that personal interactions make people feel valued. We aim to lift up, grow, challenge, and learn from the talented team members whose hard work, savviness, and intelligence keep us inspired and pushing to build an even greater company.
This week, during the fifth anniversary of Beyond4, Olo’s annual customer conference, our Founder and CEO Noah Glass gave attendees a glimpse at the restaurant of the future—and how we plan to bring that vision to life.
The average online shopping cart abandonment rate sits at nearly 70%. That means, approximately 7 out of every 10 users that initiate a transaction, don’t follow through. It’s a big problem across industries, but not an unsolvable one.
Lofty goals, a tight budget, and a small team. Restaurant marketers are all too familiar with this juggling act. But how do you drive retention and acquisition at a time when guest preferences, the supply chain, and the labor market are also in flux?
There was a time when the only way to keep a pulse on guest satisfaction at a restaurant was to hire secret shoppers or collect comment cards. Now, the Internet gives guests the power to share their thoughts—positive, negative, and everything in between—24/7 on review sites, social media, and directly with restaurant brands.
In an effort to integrate social responsibility and impact into our business, Olo joined the Pledge 1% movement and created Olo For Good in March 2021. Since then we’ve committed one percent of Olo’s time, product, and equity to foster sustainable contributions to the communities in which we live, work, and serve.
To help you make sense of the ever-evolving restaurant tech ecosystem and how it all works together to benefit restaurants, we’re breaking down two of the most talked-about newcomers to the restaurant tech stack: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Data Platform (CDP).
While workplace diversity training first emerged in the mid-1960s, many businesses have recently made diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) a priority by rethinking hiring practices and company culture and even enlisting the help of specialists to lead the effort. At Olo, we recognize that meaningful change takes time and dedication.
People increasingly want to hear from their favorite brands, but blasting the same email to every guest—with no regard for their unique preferences, behavior patterns, or level of engagement—can be a costly mistake.
Technology is key to efficient restaurant management and a positive dining experience for guests in this digital age. The right tech stack will reduce manual work and stress for employees, decrease human errors and miscommunication, boost guest satisfaction, and ultimately, enable the brand to serve more people.
Every day, restaurant CFOs field numerous requests to spend more money. If they approve the wrong expenses, the brand ends up in a ditch. Spending too much on labor or spending too little. Spending too much on food costs or too little. The same is true in every department.
Silicon Valley began funding delivery-only startups in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2019 that virtual restaurants started making waves. With the advent of COVID, the trend has taken off with some of the largest concepts, like MrBeast Burger, generating $100M in revenue across 1,600 virtual kitchens in roughly 15 months.
To satisfy demand for off-premise dining, restaurant brands of all sizes have embraced delivery. But in order to effectively grow a delivery channel, you need a multipronged approach centered around optimization, education, and promotion that will appeal to existing and potential guests, as well as encourage repeat orders.
Faced with a labor shortage and budget constraints, many restaurant brands are looking for a quick marketing solution that’s going to drive ROI. But in reality, what works for one brand may not work for another. Why?
Restaurants typically have a handful of loyal regulars who GMs and bartenders know by name, but behind the scenes, restaurant marketers are on a never-ending treasure hunt to find and attract new guests. While there are numerous restaurant guest acquisition strategies that marketers can leverage, it’s important not to underestimate the value of current guests. After all, research tells us that increasing guest retention rates by 5% increases profits by at least 25%.
As a remote-first company, we work hard to keep our distributed team connected and provide an environment where employees can grow, learn, and celebrate their authentic selves. Our employee resource groups (ERGs) play an essential role in that effort by expanding our culture to be more inclusive.
With the holidays right around the corner, restaurant brands of all types and sizes are gearing up for one of the busiest times of the year. To help you maximize revenue, guest loyalty, and employee satisfaction this season, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of winning strategies—from menu optimization to ticketed events.
Inspired by Olo’s growth journey and steadfast commitment to helping restaurants do more with less, Priya Thinagar took on the role of Executive Vice President of Technology in late 2021.
The pandemic made QR codes ubiquitous, particularly in the hospitality industry. Contactless menus and payment quickly went from being a safety precaution to a staple at many restaurants.
In an increasingly contactless world, payment processing for digital transactions has become a priority across industries. But for restaurant brands that have spent years bemoaning antiquated payment systems for their endless fees, security issues, and lack of tech integration, it can be a sore subject.
Despite the last decade of focus on the topic, restaurant brands of all sizes still struggle to collect, analyze, and most importantly, act on guest data to grow their business.
