Simply offering good food and great service aren’t enough to keep your current customers coming back for more in today’s competitive restaurant market. New customers are often even harder to attract, so it’s best to concentrate on building the loyalty those who have already dined with you.
Restaurants are turning to a variety of strategies to cultivate customer loyalty. Customers have plenty of options when choosing a dining experience, and restaurants need to stand out to garner attention. Building customer loyalty for restaurants can be a lengthy process, but it does not have to be a complicated one. Whether you are running a five-star, fine dining restaurant or a casual diner, these tips will help cultivate customer loyalty.
Create a Loyalty Program
What’s the best way to turn existing customers into regulars? Reward your customers for spending money at your restaurant. People love to rack up rewards points while making purchases. Use loyalty cards or an app as the focal point of a loyalty program to reward customers with redeemable points and extras. When a customer knows every dollar spent at a restaurant translates to redeemable rewards points good for a free appetizer, dessert, or merchandise it could incentivize them to visit more frequently.
Customer Communication
After enrolling customers into a loyalty program, a restaurant must utilize the information a customer has provided to communicate in an effective manner. You can communicate to alert customers of restaurant promotions, happy hours and events. Did you ask their birthday? Be sure to offer a special birthday promotion (free meal, dessert, double rewards points, etc.) to entice them to your restaurant during their birthday week or month.
Know and Respect Your Customers
Fridge specializes in mining and managing the customer data from loyalty programs to increase frequency for our clients. We can help you design strategic programs to stay in touch with customers via email and texting. We can evaluate the data to determine buying patterns, customer demographics and even optimize price points. It’s important to remember that true loyalty comes from understanding and respecting your customer, offering products that are relevant and providing good customer experiences that people enjoy and make them want to come back again. Let Fridge help you understand your customers and build a loyal following.
Andrew Alexander, PR and Content Specialist
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