3 Hacks to Map Your Olo Menu Like a Pro
Oof. That felt a little click-baity. It’s actually worth it though, I promise.
For those of you not in-the-know, Olo, at its most basic level, is an online ordering provider. There’s SO MUCH MORE to what they do, and I’m sure one of their salespeople would be tickled pink to tell you about it, if you’re interested.
Olo is one of my favorite online ordering software companies with a couple of caveats…. Olo is the “Cadillac” of online ordering providers. Olo is, in my opinion, the best in class. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone should use it. (Sorry, Noah.)
For smaller brands with a limited menu whose POS provides 3rd Party Delivery integrations and online ordering natively, this might not be for you. If you’re just checking a box by offering online ordering, Olo is probably not for you. If you’re doing so well in on-premise sales and don’t have the capacity for online ordering, this may not be for you. (Also, why are you even here, bro?)
For ANY brand that wants to customize their online Guest experience and does a TON of business online or wants to grow their off-premise sales considerably, I’d really consider using Olo.
I’ve talked to several brands who use Olo but have a certain amount of frustration because it’s TOO technical or not technical enough. The problem stems from which department, at a restaurant brand, is responsible for managing their Olo integration and menu. It’s usually either IT or Marketing, and they speak vastly different languages.
I’ve mapped in Olo since 2017, which is forever in restaurant tech. It didn’t have a lot of the bells and whistles that it has today. Without those tools, it made it necessary for me to dig in and really understand how the software worked. Since I wasn’t in Marketing and I wasn’t in IT, it was my job to work with those teams in order to make sure that our ancient POS (and the various POSs of our franchisees) was set up correctly for menu updates and promotions that would be offered online. When things didn’t work correctly, it was easier for me to troubleshoot the issue and then tell IT how to fix it. Throughout building and supporting Olo in our brand with various POSs over the years, I noticed some trends. I’d like to share some “hacks” that should work, regardless of which Point Of Sale a brand is using.
Please note: I would consider my assumptions on how your POS interacts with Olo to be the “rule”. Your POS may be the exception, but check with your CSM or the Olo Helpdesk, or the vast documentation in the Olo Help Center if you’re unsure. I’ve personally built and managed menus for 7 supported POSs and Expo, so this is what I’ve seen from what I’ve worked on.
Olo. Doesn’t. Control. Print. Routing. Print routing lives in the POS. When you start building an online menu (ESPECIALLY CATERING) you will find that your print routing isn’t set up the way that the restaurants need it. Most restaurants make it work (we call that Making Lemonade ‘round these parts). When you live test with one of your restaurant, the restaurant team will likely tell you if they need PRODUCT X to go to this KDS or that printer. Olo doesn’t control print-routing, so chances are this has been an ongoing issue and the in-store team is using this opportunity to get it fixed. If it’s actually working in your restaurant but not working in Olo there are probably one of three issues:
I. You’re using different items in Olo than you’re using in the store and THAT item’s print routing isn’t set up correctly in POS. Some restaurants must build whole new menus for online ordering. It’s a huge lift but it’s sometimes necessary. That separate menu is usually done in a hurry, so sometimes stuff gets missed. Or you inherited a messy POS. My condolences if that’s the case.
II. Olo’s mapped wrong. It’s mapped to the wrong item, the PLU/POS ID/GUID/Bar Code isn’t correct or you’ve got multiple versions of that item in your POS and whoever mapped Olo chose the one you’re not using. You might need to verify the correct number for the correct item.
III. Your POS or that item isn’t configured correctly for online ordering. Whatever your “Is available for online ordering?” box isn’t checked, the order type might not be configured, or doesn’t have a requisite number added or selected from some dropdown. You’ll generally find this information in Olo’s documentation as part of its POS mapping documentation.
BONUS: If you’re having issues figuring out WHICH version of an item to use online, have someone at a restaurant send you a picture of the button in the POS and a picture of the item in the KDS or the chit printer. The names are usually similar but note the same. You can look through the POS and use whichever item matches what they’re seeing in-store. That usually does the trick. Because WHY are there 7 cheddar cheeses in the POS?!
If It’s Not Mapped, It Doesn’t Matter. If you’re using a number - PLU/POS ID/GUID/Bar Code - to map your items/modifiers in Olo, THAT is the only thing that needs to be the same as the POS. There are a few “magical” POSs that map by name. This isn’t applicable for those POSs.
What’s significant about that? It means you can rename items online, you can reorganize items within modifier groups, and you can do some fancy nesting to make things easier to navigate.
I. Your menu item names don’t have to be the same online. Most customers won’t have any idea what the “Seasonal Pie” or “Soup of the Day” is and using those names online can just cause confusion. It would be best to either use the actual names of those items or exclude them completely from your online menu.
Also, consider renaming anything that your waitstaff usually explains to dine-in customers. Pictures and descriptions can help, but if the P-mix of a popular item is suffering online, give renaming it a try. For example: Cheese Curds DO NOT do well in the Northeast US. Consider renaming them to Cheese Nuggets (or Cheese Nugs) to see if they sell better. If your names aren’t mapped in the POS you can name items to whatever you want. As long as the #s match your POS, everything should show up in your POS as expected.
II. Creating nesting can create an easy order flow; especially if your POS doesn’t allow for nesting. Let’s say you’ve got a dozen sides; side salad being one of them. When you don’t have nesting in your POS then you’ve also got like 8 - 10 sides that are JUST your side salad and its dressing. So that list of sides is close to 20 items, almost half of which are side salads with dressing. Build “A” (above) would match mapping directly from your POS.
How could you map this in Olo to make it easier to navigate? Side Salad would be a “none” in mapping, and the dressings would carry the associated #. Build “B” would be mapping with nesting for a cleaner look.
Build “A” has A LOT of sides. It can be overwhelming for a customer to see the sheer volume of options and abandon their basket.
Build “B” still has a healthy variety of options, but the customer doesn’t see as much text. If they choose the side salad, a sub menu will explode out to show the dressing options. If you don’t want a side salad, you aren’t inundated with the dressing options.
3. Your Categories Don’t Have To Match Your Menu or Your Point Of Sale. When you built your dine-in menu, you probably built it for design. A sub category of 3 soups looked really cool with this particular graphic behind it, etc. That’s not as practical online. I’d go as far to say that your online menu categories don’t even need to match the categories in the POS.
I. Menu Category Names Should Provide Clear Direction. Your marketing team can go HAM on your brand voice and use your restaurant’s origin story to customers on-premises, but don’t let your creative urges overshadow your need to communicate with people who may be unfamiliar with your brand. If they can’t understand it, they probably won’t order it. Always assume that an online customer is new to your restaurant and that their goal is to order quickly. They are looking for familiar category names - entrees, appetizers, kids’, salads, desserts. If your category names are confusing because you’ve prioritized branding over comprehension, you might lose sales. You can brand with colors, fonts, pictures, and descriptions. Make sure the category names are familiar - even when your restaurant may not be. Feel free to start with a recognizable category name and riff off it, just don’t remove it completely. (Kids’ Grub, Greens 2 Go, Food for the Crew, etc..)
II. Online menus should be, to a certain extent, formulaic. Many brands follow “order of operations” for their online menus - display food in the order that people will eat it. That’s how their in-store menus are build, so they assume that their online menus should be build in the same way. But, because most online menus ARE formulaic, you can use that to your advantage. Most people expect that somewhere on the menu they’ll find appetizers, desserts, and drinks. Since customers will look for them, let them. Don’t prioritize what someone will search out.
Build categories of items that you’d like to highlight, and put those at the top of your online menu. Packages for family sized dinners, seasonal menu items, and maybe combo meals or non-seasonal LTOs. Just make sure that the category names clearly help the customer understand what they’ll find, and they’ll build a meal around whatever’s compelling at the top of the menu.
III. Online Menu Category Collections Don’t Have To Match In-Store Categories. When considering how extensive you want your online menu to look, it might be advantageous to reorganize your categories to make the flow easier for your online guest to navigate. Your in-store menu might, for example, have 15 categories with 3-5 items in each category. Consider combining like categories so there are fewer categories for customers to scroll through. Be mindful that the items in your categories will need to have similar make times because that’s where make times live in Olo. You may need to make some concessions in order to make them work, but as long as the items take about the same time to make, you should be fine.
This may require some thought. If sandwiches take 8 minutes to make but burgers take 20 minutes to make, you might not want to combine them into one category. If sandwiches take 8 minutes to make and burgers take 10 minutes to make it would make sense to combine them into a “Handhelds” category. Similarly, consider salad, soup, and maybe baked potatoes. Naming a category “Soup, Salad, + Potatoes” might feel awkward, but the primary goal of online ordering categories is to convey information clearly.
I hope that this post helped you think of new and creative ways to map your Olo menu. If you’re new to Olo mapping, it can feel overwhelming. There are a lot of people at Olo who are happy to help you figure it out.
If you or your team just don’t have the time or inclination to build or rebuild your Olo menu, please feel to reach out to our team at info@makegoodlemonade.com. We can build a project to train you and your team on how to map in Olo or build you menu on your behalf.