Bringing Digital Hospitality to Life in Restaurants
In our last post, we explored how guest habits are shifting and why digital hospitality has become the new front door of the restaurant. But what does that look like in practice? How can operators bring the same care they show in the dining room into digital channels? Let’s break it down.
What Digital Hospitality Means for Restaurants in 2025
Digital hospitality is how you make guests feel when they meet your brand online. While every brand’s digital presence is partially related to the tech tools, it also requires a fully formed strategic plan in order to make sure your entire ecosystem of People, Process, and Tools works seamlessly to deliver an excellent digital guest experience.
In practice, digital hospitality comes down to three things:
- They can find you immediately. Your listings are accurate, your search presence is clear, your website loads quickly and works on a phone and tablet.
- They want to order from you. Your photos are inviting and real, menus are clear, details are trustworthy, their questions are answered, and the overall impression reflects quality.
- The experience is effortless to complete. Ordering is simple, updates are timely, and loyalty rewards or reviews are acknowledged.
In short: digital hospitality is the absence of friction and the presence of care — a guest feeling value, even when no one is in the room.
This matters because guests now expect the same ease from restaurants that they experience with every other digital brand in their lives. If companies like Amazon, Venmo, and Spotify can make things feel instant and seamless, guests will wonder why ordering dinner should be any harder. Restaurants that deliver digital hospitality build relationships, trust, and long-term loyal guests.
How Digital Touchpoints Shape Guest Perceptions
Every click and confirmation is a chance to either deepen or weaken your relationship with a guest. A smooth ordering flow feels effortless, almost like the restaurant anticipated your needs. A thoughtful, timely response to a review signals that you care. A loyalty program that remembers a guest’s preferences makes them feel valued.
On the flip side, a broken link, a missing update, or a loyalty reward that doesn’t work can undo months of brand-building in a single moment. Research backs this up: Baymard Institute, a world-class user experience (UX) research firm, found that over 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, most often because of hidden costs or friction in the checkout process. The same thing happens with restaurant guests, if placing a mobile order feels harder than it should, many won’t take the time and effort to complete the order. And they certainly are unlikely to come back for a second try.
In a world where so much hospitality is digital-first, these moments are your dining room.
The Business Impact of Digital Hospitality on Restaurants
Done right, digital hospitality is a growth driver. Restaurants that excel here see:
- Higher revenues from increased digital sales. Digital orders aren’t just more frequent, they’re more valuable. According to a study conducted by Revenue Management Solutions in 20242, digital checks are on average 25 - 30% larger than in-person orders. Top-performing brands now drive up to 70% of transactions digitally, compared to an industry average of just 20%. That means shifting more guests to digital directly raises sales.
- Stronger guest loyalty and higher lifetime value. Digital channels aren’t just convenient, they build habits. 70% of Gen Z adults and Millennials now order takeout more often than before the pandemic, showing how digital-first dining has become routine3. According to Paytronix’s Loyalty Trend Report 20244, loyalty programs deepen that connection: nearly half of members (47%) engage several times a month, and one in three (32%) use them weekly. Digital features like order review and tracking turn that frequency into long-term loyalty.
- Better reviews, driving both traffic and brand equity. In the digital age, reviews are not just feedback, they’re a competitive lever. According to BrightLocal’s 2025 Local Consumer Review Survey5, 64% of customers expect at least a 4-star rating before they consider using a business and more than half want to read detailed positive experiences before making a decision. Strong reviews are critical and a driver of traffic and brand trust.
- Greater resilience in an industry where digital dining continues to expand. Nearly 75% of all restaurant traffic now happens off-premises, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2025 Off-Premises Restaurant Trends report6. With takeout, delivery, and drive-thru now making up three out of four orders, restaurants that treat digital as core are the ones best positioned to adapt and thrive as guest habits keep shifting. Restaurants that make digital core to their operations are best positioned to adapt and thrive.
Digital hospitality is the difference between treating online orders as transactions and treating them as relationships. The former fills seats, the latter builds brands.
Common Restaurant Digital Strategy Mistakes
Even the best operators often stumble when moving hospitality into digital channels. Some of the most common mistakes we see are:
- Assuming in-store excellence will automatically carry over online.
- Treating digital touchpoints purely as operational tasks, not opportunities for connection.
- Failing to analyze and integrate guest data in a way that creates personalization and care.
- Letting third-party platforms define the guest experience rather than owning it.
Hospitality is too important to leave to chance, especially when so much of it now happens online.
How Figure 8 Brings Hospitality to Digital
Restaurants know how to deliver great experiences in person. What’s harder is translating that same DNA into digital channels, without adding complexity, cost, or distraction from what operators do best.
That’s where Figure 8 comes in. We work alongside restaurant leaders to:
- Diagnose what’s working (and what’s missing) in your digital guest experience.
- Advise on strategy, vendors, and benchmarks across the industry.
- Transform execution through project management, SOPs, and team alignment.
Our role is simple: we help restaurants bring hospitality to every channel where guests interact with them.
Hospitality doesn’t stop at the table anymore. It lives in every guest interaction and when it shows up online, it turns convenience into connection.
If you’re ready to strengthen your restaurant’s digital strategy and bring more digital hospitality to your guests, we’d love to help.
--------------------
1 https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
2 https://www.revenuemanage.com/trends/january-2025/
3 https://restaurant.org/education-and-resources/resource-library/restaurant-expectations-vary-widely-with-different-age-groups/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
4 https://www.nfs-hospitality.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Annual-Loyalty-Report-2024.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
5 https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey-2024/
6 https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/research-reports/off-premises-restaurant-trends-2025/
Ready to move? Let’s talk.
