With social distancing and quarantine restrictions still in place amid the COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus pandemic, many restaurants are relying solely on takeout and delivery orders in order to stay afloat during the public health crisis.
Recently, apps like GrubHub and UberEats came under heavy scrutiny when restaurant owners came out about the high surcharges the app charges for their deliveries. Many of these small locally owned restaurants rely on these third-party apps to expand their customer area. One company is empowering black-owned restaurants with a new delivery service that help restaurants earn more profits from their orders.
Mo Sloan is the founder of EZ-Chow, an integrated online ordering application that lets customers place orders directly with restaurants to help streamline deliveries without the use of third-party delivery apps. The online ordering solution would help restaurants increase their takeout and delivery revenue. Sloan founded his company after he grew tired of small business owners being taken advantage of and becoming frustrated with working in corporate America.
“I realized I had reached a glass ceiling in my position in corporate America, but I believed that I had the potential for more,” said Sloan in an email interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE.
“I wanted to solve a problem for an industry so I tapped into my restaurant experience with Papa John’s International and started thinking of how I could help restaurants, specifically small and medium-sized hospitality organizations. I started EZ-Chow to help restaurants and hospitality organizations control their own digital channel. I wanted to democratize technology for smaller organizations and give them the tools and tech capabilities to compete against the larger, national chains.”
“Our service is different from companies like GrubHub or UberEats, because we are true merchant partners. We help restaurants pivot and become e-commerce businesses. We help them own direct digital customer engagement with their customers,” he continued.
“We eliminate the reliance on third-party menu aggregators or marketplace business models. By giving the restaurant a platform to engage directly with their customers, the restaurant takes control of the process. EZ-Chow allows restaurants to own customer data, the customer experience, their own brand, and the transaction itself, at a fraction of the expense of third party aggregators. It also simplifies the process as orders are injected directly into the merchant’s existing point-of-sale system. [It’s] a win-win-win scenario. It’s a win for the customer (they pay less), a win for us (we make revenue), and most importantly a win for the merchant (they get the order with all the benefits of direct ordering).”
Sloan went on to say that his software is needed now more than ever amid the COVID-19 outbreak where restaurants are doing all they can to stay afloat. “COVID has helped our business because we are the most efficient way for restaurants to generate off-premise dining revenue,” he said.
“With COVID shutting down dining rooms around the country, restaurants and hospitality organizations are turning to us to provide them both short-term and long-term assistance with both surviving the pandemic and thriving in a post-pandemic world where consumers expect convenience.”
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