I've been watching the progress of ORDA for a few months, looks pretty appealing but to be honest I haven't looked past the jacket to see if there is any depth to what they offer beyond a strong marketing presence (speaking of...how do they seem to market to me directly from Square? - digression).
I have been using PP for, 3 or 4 years, not sure. I have all the same Pros mentioned by @ryanwanner (dude, I've got to visit your shops one day!!)
Pro's (added):
- Notices can be seen right on the Square POS (if you'd like), creating an environment where staff has to deal with it before moving on. They can also be auto-printed as mentioned.
- This is key as no additional hardware or separate devices are needed for the flow of your team. Almost no way for things to get lost once you nail down the process.
- I'll add to the list the simplicity of their administrative site, while I agree it does take some getting used to (we're so familiar with the drag/drop model and super clean interfaces, this basic database structure has lost its elegance.) I also have to say its simplicity is nice once you get the hang of it.
- Adding custom branding and imagery seems simple but a big step to making customers feel part of a group
- Connects to customer loyalty accounts
- Square knows PP users and can create custom marketing groups around them for communication and promotions (possibly any provider?)
I 2nd the motion that Adam, Ronnie & the team are friendly, helpful, and available - appreciated.
It's been so long since I set up, I don't remember my pricing, I think Ryan is close.
Cons:
- Simplicity can come with fewer options, but nothing that has me frustrated.
- Modern, consumer-facing UX, the team is working on this, and being so available to existing users is sure to slow them down on what they'd rather be working on. Still, every development team is most frustrated by the capacity to get all the things on their list of interests (and ours) done.
- They have spent some time building repetitive functionality, I'd rather see us as a user-base asking Square for access through the API to features already available to us on the platform rather than the PP team dedicating their development time to making features that exist and could become available in the future.
- No ability to quickly suspend the app due to special circumstances. For instance, weather causes early close or closed due to holidays, staff meetings, etc. PP becomes one more thing to update (google page, facebook, insta, website), it would be great if the app pulled hours from Square and a change on square adjusted my app, or I could click a simple button on the admin page to suspend sales indefinitely or for a specific time-frame.
- I should say it isn't hard to change the hours via the admin site, just one more thing to remember to change then modify again once back to normal.
I've researched at least a half-dozen options. None seem to offer more than the basics and PP has them all. Some common things to consider and potential complications that you'll need to address as you move into adding an app interface with your customers is cost.
- If you have a website via Square you can set up, with two clicks, an icon shortcut on a smartphone home page that looks like an app. Easy with customized image and no additional fees.
- An app will cost more. You'll pay the monthly fee along with a higher processing rate and increased per ring fees as you use the API gateway to interact with your menu and account.
- Consider if you need to recover this additional cost and how you'll do it (I HAVE GOT TO FIGURE THIS OUT MYSELF SUCCESS IS COMING WITH A PRICE - posting a request for ideas and help on this topic soon)
- Consider all the Square offerings you use and which will be available through the App, some will some won't. Think about how you'll promote the app through all your offerings.
By way of what to expect, we launched ours by telling only 5 of our top come/go, customers. After a year we had over a dozen daily users. During that time we became comfortable with the process, established a curbside and in-store procedure, and had the confidence to share with more. Now, years later, I haven't looked at our app downloads but we get a few every day and now about a third of all orders come through the app, some getting to go, some order to skip the line and sit down quicker (not a behavior you want to encourage!). This is huge, it has made our line shorter (fewer people walking away when they see the line) and improved back-of-bar flow. We grew about 15% specifically because of the app. While that may not seem like a lot (given some of the obscene marketing numbers I've seen out there) consider this - 15% @ $7/ring *360ish days = north of $75k in new revenue.
I'd argue the app has not resulted in large numbers of new customers (I've got strong ideas around how it could!!). It has increased the loyalty of existing customers, increased repeat visits, and helped retain customers that might have left for the newly opened corporate drive-thru down the road.
Take care of yourself and, as life provides, someone else too.
