2024 Fall Release
Each quarter, we’re proud to announce platform enhancements that increase value for customers. By continuously investing in the Olo Order, Pay, + Engage Suites, we’re committed to helping restaurants increase orders, streamline operations, and improve the guest experience.
Here's what we cooked up in Q3 2024.
Major features
INCREASE ORDERS
New Catering+ account management features make it easier to build and grow your catering business
Olo Catering+ customers can now create, manage, and maintain parent-level business accounts within the Olo Dashboard—centralizing the details of every current and potential catering account and unlocking the ability to drive more business through the catering channel.
With these enhancements, restaurants can gain a competitive advantage with robust features specifically tailored for the catering market:
- Create and manage complex business accounts
- Assign relevant guests and catering locations
- Manage important information—including House Accounts and Tax-Exempt Status—at multiple levels
STREAMLINE OPERATIONS
Qu's POS integration lets brands aggregate all payment data + deliver seamless in-store payment experiences
Brands using Qu's POS systems can now process card-present payments on modern payment terminals via Olo Pay—providing guests with the seamless, fast, and efficient in-store payments experience they expect while allowing brands to aggregate 100% of payments data onto the Olo platform.
This greatly simplifies processes like reconciliation and refunding for accounting teams, and will enable brands to leverage in-store and online guest transaction data to better understand guests and deliver more personalized marketing outreach. Following the launch of card-present payments via kiosks, this enhancement expands Olo Pay’s card-present processing capabilities, with additional POS integrations coming in the near future.
IMPROVE GUEST EXPERIENCES
New map functionality + simplified passwordless sign-ins will streamline the ordering process
Coming soon, a new interactive map within the store locator section will reduce drop-off rates and speed up the ordering process by helping guests intuitively find the nearest location—auto-completing the guest’s address and creating a more visual experience by highlighting nearby locations on an interactive map.
Second, Olo’s Borderless sign-in experience has been updated to help increase loyalty program participation while simultaneously making the guest checkout fast and efficient. The update prioritizes loyalty program sign-up while still making use of Borderless, so guests are able to easily sign in and accrue + redeem loyalty rewards for future orders without having to enter a password.
Even more ways Olo has invested in improving the ordering experience for guests in 2024:
Smart cross-sells:
Increase average order value by providing personalized suggestions to guests during ordering and checkout.
Static cross-sells with modifiers:
Include products with modifiers for more flexibility in the menu items you use for cross-selling.
Recent/frequently ordered items:
Provide a more personalized ordering experience by displaying the guest’s name + recent orders and showcasing location-specific availability, imagery, and pricing.
Serve modifier images:
Let guests see their customizations in real time, enhancing the experience and boosting basket size.
Menu recommendations:
Powered by machine learning, provide personalized suggestions based on past orders, making the process more engaging and boosting conversion rates and order value.
Check out more features released in Q3 here:
INCREASE ORDERS
Olo Pay data from Bite kiosks integrated into Olo Engage
The Olo Engage Suite now leverages a new matching method between digital and in-store orders, using external payment identification methodology and resulting in nearly every Olo Pay transaction being tied to a guest user profile. This makes it possible to reach more guests in marketing efforts, develop comprehensive retention + churn-prevention strategies, and deploy more personalized automation journeys across on- and off-premise touchpoints.
STREAMLINE OPERATIONS
Duplicate coupons
This new button in the Coupon Manager tool within the Olo Dashboard makes it quicker and easier for users to replicate coupon settings from archived, expired, or existing coupons.
DoorDash self-service onboarding
Olo’s new self-service tool streamlines store setup with DoorDash, reducing onboarding time from days to minutes by automating store mapping and offering real-time integration visibility.
Ability to send branded discounts into POS
Brands using Rails for marketplace orders can now opt for brand-funded discounts to be automatically included when submitting orders to the POS, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation. This ensures accurate revenue tracking and saves time by submitting discounts as open-dollar orders.
Menu visibility filtering
This enhancement lets brands customize menu visibility by channel (kiosk, web, mobile, voice, etc.). By designating a Custom Ordering Channel, brands can automatically filter menu items for specific platforms, eliminating the need for separate channel-specific menus
Handoff mode enablement improvements
Brands with drive-thru and pickup handoff modes enabled can now manage these handoff modes directly from the Olo Dashboard.
Users simply navigate to the Store Settings section and toggle drive-thru and pickup handoff modes on/off and set store hours—eliminating reliance on Olo and empowering brands with greater operational flexibility.
Catering+ lead-time bypass
Catering teams and Switchboard users can bypass lead times to accept last-minute orders or adjust existing ones while keeping the original schedule. This feature enhances flexibility, reduces complexity, and allows guests to modify orders without disrupting fulfillment.
Enhanced alcohol validation settings
To simplify brand compliance with jurisdiction-level regulatory requirements, Olo has strengthened its alcohol validation process, empowering customers to configure—on a per-item basis—which non-alcoholic items should substantiate the purchase of standalone alcoholic items.
Olo Engage integrations with NCR Payments + Chase Paymentech
To help brands using multiple platforms to capture orders and payments across on- and off-premise touchpoints, Olo’s new integration with NCR and Chase breaks down data silos and enables Engage customers to develop a unified view of each guest and create more personalized marketing programs at scale.
New enhancements from Olo’s partnership ecosystem
Olo is proud to partner with 400+ of the world’s most innovative restaurant tech providers, and we’re excited to share these notable partnership updates from Q3 2024:
Sparkfly offer management + Olo Engage integration
To help brands increase acquisition, engagement, retention, and guest lifetime value, Sparkfly and Olo have collaborated to combine offer management tools with the full capabilities of Olo’s Engage Suite. Enhancements include:
- Standalone offer management: Create, distribute, and track personalized offers and promotions
- Real-time POS connectivity: Seamlessly integrate to ensure real-time offer redemption and data synchronization
- Mobile rewards wallets: Give guests a more convenient way to store, manage, and redeem rewards and offers
GRUBBRR platform certification + Olo Pay integration
Newly platform certified, GRUBBRR’s kiosks meet the highest standards for Olo compatibility—letting brands implement kiosks faster and providing operators with a reliable, robust, and efficient in-store digital ordering and payment experience.
With the Olo Pay integration, brands can process 100% of payments through Olo, enjoying simplified reporting and the ability to tie each transaction to known guests.
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CURRENT OLO CUSTOMER
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INNOVATION IMPACT SPOTLIGHT When restaurant brands adopt features from Olo's releases, they see business impact.
Here's one recent example →
Here's one recent example ↓
Fast-casual salad restaurant Evergreens experienced these early results after adopting modifier images:
Guests are more likely to
Past Releases
Keep tabs on Olo’s ongoing enhancements by viewing the details of what we’ve released in previous quarters.
