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Must-Have Features Of a Coffee Shop Mobile App

Must-Have Features Of a Coffee Shop Mobile App

By Anjaly Chandran, Content Developer at Webandcrafts. She has been involved in content writing and copywriting for 5+ years, specialising in website content, blogs, copies, technical writing, case studies and whitepapers.
  • Published in Blog on March 01, 2024
  • Last Updated on August 28, 2024
  • 8 min read
Must-Have Features of a Coffee Shop Mobile App

Coffee shops have become the favourite places for leisure, and people have begun opting for the best coffee experiences as an ultimate sign of satisfaction with every sip of coffee.

No wonder the coffee shop owners have been cautiously exploring the possible potential of making business easier with apps recently. The major focus of the cafe relies on finding the most effective methods of increasing customer loyalty.

This ranges from enhancing sales, revenue, and customer satisfaction. A coffee shop app is the ideal way to inculcate a sense of belonging among the clientele and help businesses reward customers with a promising way of keeping them happy.

There is no limit to the possibilities open to coffee shop owners while considering custom apps. While developing an app for your coffee shop, there are certain key features you need to check out.

Here at WAC, we have gained ample experience working on various mobile app development projects, for instance, those of premium coffee brands like Caribou. Let’s make a comprehensive analysis of the bare essentials required to build customised coffee shop apps for your business.

Why Does Your Coffee Shop Need A Mobile App?

When your customers want to make a quick order or avail of the services from the cafe, an app makes it much easier. The benefits of having an app for your coffee shop business are as follows: 

  1. Your staff makes the fewest mistakes. When customers enter their orders, the right order gets sent to the staff.
  2. Usually, customers spend more when they order via an app. They get more time to browse the menu and decide, which improves upsells and add-ons. 
  3. With a loyalty programme, you can increase the number of repeated visits and multiply the order sizes.
  4. Your staff should spend more time accepting orders and more time fulfilling them. This helps the team become highly efficient and lets you get more orders with fewer members.
  5. You can showcase the brand very well. A custom-branded application gives you the potential to move the in-store branding online. 
  6. The apps help you own the information you receive through them. This means that, with their permission, you can directly contact your customers. You can also use the data to improve the efficiency of the coffee shop. 
  7. You can communicate with the customers through personalised suggestions and by sharing promotions and discounts. Sending the push notifications at the right time helps you increase the order size. For example, if your customer orders coffee every day, then sending an exclusive discount code for the morning sandwich is an added advantage.

Must-Have Features for the Best Coffee Shop Apps

Coffee shop apps let you establish yourself as one of the best coffee brands, with the right set of features incorporated in the app. By designing and developing an app for your cafe, it becomes easy to order coffee online and compete with popular coffee brands. A cafe app is an ideal solution to attract customers across the globe. Here are the significant features you can adopt to create an app for your business.

Pre-Ordering Coffee

Nobody likes waiting in line when they need to get their morning caffeine fix. The top factor that keeps clients thinking of visiting a cafe is the long line. A quieter cafe would be the choice compared to one with a huge rush.

By incorporating a pre-ordering feature in the custom coffee shop app, you allow clients to skip the queue and have the coffee ready for arrival.

This is a crucial factor in boosting customer loyalty and making the customer feel special.

A dedicated staff can handle pre-orders quickly and effectively, increasing the possibility of speeding up the process to make more money and keep more customers happy.

In-store App Payments

As we move further towards a cashless system, apps that let customers make online payments are becoming highly popular.

App payments don’t need you to have the right cash on you, and they don’t require you to browse through your wallet in search of a debit/credit card.

They are simple, efficient and fast, making them as essential as obtaining the morning coffee before starting to go to your office. App payments in the store also trigger customer loyalty and community.

This option shows customers that, as a business owner, you care about making things seamless for clients and that you actively seek ways to make the services streamlined.

It shows that your cafe adopts steps to stay ahead of advanced technologies and remains keen to gain a competitive edge.

Find Location

While considering chain companies with outlets in various countries or globally, this is one of the most relevant factors you can think of.

Your loyal customers experience the real essence of what you serve and decide that your business best reflects the customers’ preferences and values.

Consider a user who travels for any purpose, be it a business trip or pleasure.  If they wish to fetch a cup of coffee, they usually do a Google search for ‘Best coffee shop near me’. They might get a list of suggestions but what is the probability that they land in your shop?

However, when your app has an active location feature, people will be able to see whether your coffee chain has a shop close to where they are located.

Even for cafes with fewer outlets, location finders can be beneficial—your loyal followers will be keen to communicate to your dear and near ones about the shop, and maps can be a real help in spreading the word about what makes the cafe so unique.

Rewards Program

If you’re searching for an idea to boost customer revenue and loyalty, the rewards program is a must-have feature.

Every time your customers buy coffee, they earn virtual ‘stamps’ or digital rewards. Collecting these points, stamps, or rewards can help customers earn discounts or even get the next coffee free of charge!

Rewards programs offer an apt way of considering custom coffee shop apps, since they eliminate the risk of losing or forgetting to carry a physical card to the coffee shop.

This scheme triggers loyalty massively, as it lets customers only drink at your coffee shop and enables tracking of how many points they have collected.

News Feed

Building an online community within your custom app is a great way to build customer loyalty. The most effective way of doing this is by creating a news feed on the app and keeping the customers aware of what is going on at your cafe.

Imagine a new type of coffee being available at your shop. You can post it on your feed and let the customers know what’s happening.

If some local event is happening nearby, you can encourage the customers to check it out and remind them that your coffee shop is where they wish to go for refreshments.

This is also a great option to enhance your promotional efforts with offers and the best deals for app customers, and it grows the sense of community that the app users will fall in love with.

Caribou Coffee: The Custom Mobile App That Multiplied Sales Conversions

Caribou Coffee, the premium coffeehouse chain, envisioned expanding its efforts to infuse personal connection into the coffeehouse experience.

They sought to develop a custom coffee shop app with the expertise of WAC to significantly boost sales, conversions and the overall customer experience.

The mobile app development for Caribou was one of the best projects where Webandcrafts was able to showcase the exceptional expertise of our app developers.

Here are the features that made the Caribou mobile app stand out from the other coffee shop mobile apps:

  • Signing up for Caribou perks was made easier via the app to earn all the benefits the store offers.
  • The shop gifts the perks member a free favourite medium beverage after the first visit.
  • The app purchases help customers earn points for the money spent on buying food/beverages.

WAC’s ‘Formula’ that Helped Caribou Coffee Make Rapid Sales

The 'Caribou Coffee Kuwait’ app was launched and made available in both the Play Store and App Store. 
Caribou Coffee mobile app has incorporated all the key information a usual mobile app contains, including account creation, location-enabled store select features, food/drinks search, add to cart option, checkout, order preparation, pickup status for online orders, etc. 
In addition to these, the app also had additional features and rewards options that successfully increased sales and conversions. 

Extra Features included in the Caribou mobile app:

  • Location-enabled store search and store selection.
  • Wallet top-up feature enables customers to pay directly from their digital wallet.
  • In-app orders enable members to get freebies and additional beverages for no extra charge.
  • The app users can also get free birthday drinks during their birthday week. 
  • Perks members get insider access to special promos and Caribou coffee news.
  • The app opens the door for customers to customise the drink the way they like. 

Rewards:

The rewards feature is an exciting part of the app. It lets customers build up the points balance and redeem them for rewards such as size upgrades, extra espresso, free brewed coffee, combos, free bakery stuff, free shipping on online orders, online coffee order offers, bowlers and beans. 
The reward milestone is on a 25 to 400-point scale. The user can redeem rewards or gift cards for seasonal discounts, birthday offers, combo coupons and even cashback offers.

Build Custom Coffee Shop Apps to Enhance Business Potential

There you have it—the most significant factors of a custom coffee shop app that can keep your business earning well! Want to find out how our developers can help your company with a custom coffee shop app?

Here at WAC, being the top app development company in India, we support your brand to enhance its sales with custom app development. In addition to the development of coffee shop mobile apps, we have experts adept at providing mobile app development services for all types of apps that suit your business type, size and expectations.

For more information on app development and to discuss building an app for your business, let's talk!

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