20 superior services for restaurant owners

Could you use relief in the daily life of your restaurant? Are you looking to boost efficiency or reach new customers? We've compiled a list of proven services that help smooth out the bumps in the day-to-day life of a restaurant, turning uphill battles into downhill victories.

Acquiring customers

Venuu - event venues and services

Life is full of celebrations and events, and what better way to organize an occasion than through one platform! Through an easy-to-use website, you can find venues, experiences, catering services, performers, photographers, and event supplies and production – basically everything you need!

Whether you want to surprise your staff with team-building days or host unforgettable holiday parties, Venuu is an excellent place to start. For users, Venuu is free, and finding services is convenient through filters; you can narrow down options based on location or the number of attendees.

For venue and service providers, Venuu is a flexible marketing partner that elevates demand to new heights. The site currently features over 4,500 spaces, and the number is only growing. Partnering with Venuu is worthwhile, as it's a surefire way to reach event organizers

Discover Helsinki - travel guide

Is your company located in Helsinki? In that case, Discover Helsinki is just for you, as it allows you to reach both domestic travelers and international tourists. This travel guide, consisting of a book, website, and mobile app, provides information about Helsinki's services, such as restaurants and cafes, not to mention interesting Helsinki-themed articles. Businesses can also add various benefits to the Discover Helsinki service, making it even easier to reach travelers.

Frank - student benefits

Student overalls are synonymous with shopping pants, making students an excellent target audience for restaurants. University students spend a total of 3 billion euros annually (Frank Students 2022). Once they are lured to visit a restaurant, their willingness to make purchases is assured.

However, the student budget has its own implications, and that's why students are real bargain hunters. Adding benefits is almost essential if your goal is to expand your customer base to include students. Frank, a free digital student card, can be a helpful ally—it's widely used for its convenience.

Collaborating with Frank enables reaching students and, consequently, increasing sales. Even small, single-location restaurants can advertise through Frank completely for free. Learn more about Frank's free advertising for small businesses by clicking here.

Pivo & CityShoppari - discount coupons

Discount coupons and campaigns hold power, as surprisingly many of us make choices enticed by offers. Pivo is a versatile app, well-known for mobile payments, but it also includes features such as a digital student card, Club benefits, and the ability to make TableOnline table reservations. Pivo has 1.2 million downloads across Finland, so reaching potential customers is sure. 

On the other hand, CityShoppari is a Finnish service that has been offering various benefits to Finns for 25 years. Operating as a mobile app, CityShoppari is a cost-effective marketing platform where businesses can publish one-time or ongoing discount coupons. Learn more about the benefits of CityShoppari by clicking here.

Atmosphere and coziness

Feelment® - restaurant enterntainmet

In our previous post, we pondered what makes a restaurant successful and delved into the significance of restaurant entertainment in this regard. A touch of experientiality propels toward success, and what easier way to create an ambiance than with Feelment®. You get background music, karaoke, sports channels, and advertising through one user-friendly application. You can try Feelment for free for a month.

Musiikkiluvat.fi - Online music licensing store

You can easily obtain the licenses from Teosto and Gramex required for playing background music through the music licensing platform musiikkiluvat.fi. If you're unsure about the type of license you need, this information is conveniently available in the same package. In addition, the website also features the 'Kuulokanavalla' blog, which includes interesting articles on music topics and up-to-date information related to licenses.

Takeaway -sales

Foodora & Wolt - takeaway and food delivery

The popularity of home delivery has grown in recent years, and it's no wonder – whether there's a sense of urgency or tired legs, the situation is saved by the delights of a favorite restaurant delivered straight to the doorstep. However, organizing food delivery in-house requires resources and incurs costs, so utilizing a delivery service is worthwhile. Foodora and Wolt are convenient apps for reaching a new customer base and boosting sales.

ResQ Club - Takeaway sales and reducing food waste

As the closing time approaches, many restaurants still have unsold portions that may not last until the next day. ResQ Club offers a service through which restaurants can boost sales while reducing food waste. Through the ResQ app, restaurants can sell surplus food items, such as leftover lunch or ingredients remaining in the kitchen, at discounted prices. Customers place orders directly through the app and pick them up from the restaurant themselves.

Marketing planning

Cloqqa Plan - yearly clock

To ensure that marketing remains a regular part of everyday life, an annual calendar is a useful tool for planning. Cloqqa is a free, Finnish-language website that offers features for planning and budgeting various projects. A clear annual calendar and color-coding help visualize upcoming events. Feelment's marketing team has found Cloqqa to be an extremely useful service

Marketing materials

Canva - graphic design

Do you need an app for creating advertising materials but aren't longing for the features of Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.)? Canva is a service developed for graphic design, offering both a free and a paid version. With Canva, you can create various advertising materials such as social media posts, videos, and brochures. Versatile features and user-friendliness have made Canva a popular tool, as the application's templates ensure success without extensive experience in graphic design.

The paid Canva Pro version is a worthwhile purchase if you need more extensive tools, such as saving/managing logos, custom fonts, and colors. Canva is available in a Finnish version, and the service can be used both through the website and the app. Check out Feelment's Instagram to see the content created with Canva

Unsplash, Pexels & Pixabay – free stock photo websites

Photographs play a crucial role in marketing, but caution is needed when dealing with images. If you take photos yourself, you don't have to worry about copyrights, but you still need to consider the quality and editing of the pictures. A good solution is to use shots from professional photographers whose copyrights have been waived. Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay are all websites that provide free images, suitable for marketing use, for example.

Grano – printed materials

Whatever marketing materials you need, you can easily and reliably get them through Grano. Grano is a Finnish company that offers services for implementing various items, such as window decals, printed materials, websites, and even exhibition materials for your restaurant. At Feelment, we trusted in Grano's expertise when creating our latest specialty magazine for restaurant entertainment. You can read about our feelings after the magazine project in Grano's publication.

Did you know that Grano also provides translation services? So, if you need a foreign-language version of your menu or website, you can approach the company for assistance.

Customer Relationship Management and Customer Communication

TableOnline – table reservation service

Do you want to provide your customers with an easy way to make table reservations and purchase gift cards for your restaurant? TableOnline is a website that gathers the best restaurants in Finland and Tallinn under one roof. In addition to making reservations and buying gift cards, you can read current news, such as recommendations or browse various offers through the site.

Mailchimp – customer registry and communication

One of the essential tools for goal-oriented marketing is maintaining a customer registry and engaging in customer communication, such as through newsletters. Mailchimp provides assistance for multichannel marketing, including managing marketing customer registries, building websites, and sending newsletters. The tiered pricing allows the service to adapt to the needs of various businesses. There is also a free version available for businesses with smaller customer bases and needs.

Cardu – loyalty programs, customer registry, and communication

Cardu is a versatile service for customer management and communication. With Cardu, you can maintain your customer registry, communicate with your customers, conduct targeted campaigns, and track your progress. Available as a mobile app, Cardu also enables the easy implementation of user-friendly stamp cards and mobile coupons. In addition, exchanging plastic cards and paper stamp cards for Cardu's mobile card is a small but significant eco-friendly gesture. Besides the mobile card, the Finnish company offers the CarduMailer newsletter service, allowing customer communication through emails.

Google My Business – business information

Have you encountered an angry customer who received incorrect information about your restaurant's opening hours on Google? Or have you yourself looked at the same search page, thinking that a certain business was open when it wasn't? Maintaining your Google business profile is a completely free way to improve customer communication. No matter how much we try to remind the Finnish people about the vagueness of opening hours on Google Search and Maps, there will always be a forgetful customer. The surest way to avoid confusion is to take care of how your business appears on search services. With Google's business profile, you can keep your business information up to date, add product images under your restaurant, and respond to reviews, all completely free of charge.

Success through combination

Digitization has brought forth a vast array of applications, which may cause decision paralysis or even confusion. However, experimentation is worthwhile, as it helps you find a combination that suits your business. By combining different services, you can achieve an effective and cost-efficient way to reach new customers and boost sales. Remember to give changes time, as the old saying goes: "Persistence pays off."