
You don't need to visit the restaurant for your favourite delicious cuisines. All you need to do is to download an on-demand food delivery app and order online. It is as convenient as it seems and you will have a dish at your doorsteps in no time. There are many on-demand food delivery apps available for you such as Zomato, Swiggy, Ubereats and Talabat.
You can even read the ratings and reviews of the restaurant while placing an order. Not just that, you can even get some astonishing deals and discount offers on your favourite cuisines. Overall, you will have the best deal to look out for.
These on-demand food delivery apps are becoming popular across the globe, especially among millennials who have no time to go to the restaurant and wait for tables in rush hours on holidays and weekends. On-demand food delivery apps are convenient, comfortable and with a few clicks on your mobile app you can have your favourite cuisines on your plate.
However, the on-demand food delivery apps should be robust, highly-functional, innovative and scalable to attract users and should give gratification and superior user experience to them. If your app fails to give a good experience to the users, it might not do well in the cutthroat competition. There must be all general and some advanced features of on demand food delivery app to make the life of the user easy and effortless.
What are the crucial on demand food delivery app features that you must incorporate into your app? This post is about all these must features that your app should have. Stay tuned!
Simple, intuitive and highly attractive user interface
Whether you believe it or not, the user interface is the main factor that decides the success or failure of a mobile application. It is one of the most crucial features of on demand food delivery apps that you need to focus on. Just check out any on-demand food delivery app and you will find that the user interface is simple, intuitive and visually appealing.
If the UI is not up to the mark or takes more time to load, users will lose interest in the app and move on. The research suggests that more than 50% of users will not open the app a second time if the user experience was not good and satisfactory in the first place.
You need to take care of this issue during the on-demand food delivery app development stage. Hire best UI designers who can come up with a promising and appealing user interface that serves the core purpose. The most important thing for users is to find what they are looking for easily and effortlessly and this goal must be fulfilled. The navigation should be smooth, streamlined and the overall features and functionalities should be working smoothly without any hindrances.
Push Notifications
You might be getting push notifications from different apps on your smartphone. These push notifications can be of anything, for example, about a new offer or discount or important industry news or app updates and important reminders. It is the best way to notify users about the app and related information and details.
In addition to that, there are chances that the users have multiple food delivery apps on their smartphones. In that case, you need to stay ahead of the others and push notifications can be a saviour in such a situation.
One thing that you need to keep in mind is that the push notifications must have a certain value for users. You will not gain anything by sending random push notifications. Instead you might end up losing a customer. You need to send push notifications at regular intervals, but only when the message has some value for the customers.

Real-time GPS tracking of food order and delivery
It is one of the best features of on demand food delivery application like UberEats where users can track the order in real-time. It will add a sense of gratification for the users as they will be able to track the delivery and at the same time, restaurants too can know about the delivery status of the order. Also, for the delivery boy, he will be able to identify the user location for delivery.
There are many tools available to incorporate this feature such as Google Maps, MapKit and Waze's Navigation. It will give a prolific user experience to the customers and they will surely appreciate it as well.
Easy payment options
Most of the orders get cancelled due to lengthy and time-consuming payment processes and it turns customers off. It is the last stage of an order and if it takes too much time for users to pay online, they will simply switch to your business rivals. There is a possibility that they might not come to your app again for business.
It is of utmost importance that you ensure a smooth payment procedure which is productive and timesaving. Also, you need to ensure that you offer as many payment options to customers as possible. It will be appreciated.
From traditional credit card/debit card and bank transfer options to new payment options such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay, iOS wallet, Stripe, PayPal and others, you need to add as many options as possible to make the payment procedure quick, simple and highly effective.
Social media integration
Social media networks have taken the world by storm and there is no denying in that. It is one of the most important aspects of internet marketing and by integrating social media networks with the app, you are allowing users to share their favourite moments with the world. They can share food item photos and videos on social media and also create awareness on different social media platforms.
Also, there are many other ways you can take advantage of social media integration of the app. You can post about new discount offers and deals on those mediums to attract more users to your app and also promote your app there too. One such way is to come up with loyalty programs for existing customers by inviting new customers to the app.
Reviews and ratings
Do you want to incorporate all the issues and potential bugs in your next app update?
Well, for that, you need to first know what are the issues your users are facing and ratings and reviews can make it possible for you. When you are using an app and you are not satisfied with some features or functionalities, what you do? You simply write a review on the Google Play Store or the Apple store.
Similarly, users will write their valuable suggestions and issues for the app that might help you to address those issues and to improve the user experience. Remember, when you address concerns and issues, users appreciate such gestures. It makes them feel special and adds gratification.
Even you can also incorporate in-app ratings and reviews to ask developers to address issues quickly without disturbing user experience for your customers.

Superlative deals, discount and promotion offers
Don’t you always look for some good deals and discount offers from the businesses? It is a universal mentality irrespective of gender, location and other parameters. You need to come up with attractive deals and discounts from time to time to keep the users’ interest intact.
There are many ways you can come up with deals and offers such as promo codes, reference bonuses, seasonal offers, reward systems, loyalty programs and others.
A little bit of personalization also can help you to grab the attention of users. For example, you have information about the customer's age, gender and location and order history. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence technology and availability of this crucial information, you can create a personal deal for your customers to attract them. They will surely love it.
Order Scheduling
If you want to make your app favourite amongst millennials, you need to come up with some of the top features of on demand food delivery app and one such feature is order scheduling. Well, take an example of UberEats that lets it's users to book a meal in advance.
Remember that your users are busy in their schedules and professional commitments and they don't want to spend time again and again on the app. By facilitating them to order in advance, they can place orders for an entire week in advance and save some time and effort. Furthermore, you will grow your loyal customer base if you offer this beautiful feature to them.

Chatbots
Well, who can forget chatbots in the tiny box at the corner of the screen of the website and app? These chatbots were not popular earlier, but after understanding their importance in enhancing the user experience, most of the apps have this feature including food delivery apps.
Here, users can chat with the restaurant owners and delivery boys about the status of the delivery, issues, and other things. It saves time and owners can also make necessary changes in the order or delivery procedures. During the on demand app development process, ask the developers to incorporate this feature in the app.
Conclusion
Incorporating above-mentioned features will give superior user experience to the customers and they will spend more time on the app and take desired actions. Along with superlative user interface and purposeful functionalities, you also need to offer gratification to the users by filling the problem gap they are facing. In addition to that, an in-depth competitor analysis would also help you to address those areas which are yet unexplored by your rivals. Such value-added features will make your on demand food delivery app unique and unparalleled.
Sanjay kidecha
CMO