How to increase customer loyalty at your restaurant
Increasing customer loyalty in a restaurant is a great challenge for any business owner. In addition to being a good way to work on customer satisfaction, it costs you less than looking for new customers. It’s therefore essential to know all the right techniques to make your customers want to come back for more.
What is customer loyalty? How do you maintain a lasting relationship with your customers? What modern techniques work for sure?
Find all our advice in this article.
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Digitalising your restaurant in 4 steps
From setting up your online business to financing your digital transformation: discover all the tips you need to make your day-to-day life easier and respond to new consumer habits.
Why is it so important to build customer loyalty at your restaurant?
Loyalty means making restaurant customers want to come back, and creating a lasting relationship with them. Loyalty has many advantages for your business:
Increase in turnover
Increase in the average order value
Customer satisfaction
Brand building
Knowledge of customer data
And more!
The loyalty of your restaurant's customers can come as a result of the actions you have put in place, but also if you give them a good experience. To achieve this, you will have to pay particular attention to the quality of your dishes, the atmosphere, or even the relationship of your team.
The more satisfied a person is, the more they will instinctively talk about their experience to those around them who will want to try it in turn: this is the principle of positive word of mouth.
7 tips for retaining customers at your restaurant
1. Change the menu regularly
To make your customers want to come back to your restaurant and prevent them from getting bored, changing the menu regularly is a great technique. Switch from a winter menu to a summer menu and so on, in order to offer dishes adapted to the season.
2. Offer returnable containers
The packaging used to serve your food and drinks can also be an opportunity for loyalty. By offering returnable containers and packaging on your delivery or collection orders, your customers will be more likely to return to your store.
If these instructions are dressed with the logo or the name of your restaurant, it is also an indirect way of advertising your business and boosting your brand image.
In addition to the opportunity in terms of loyalty, offering reusable containers helps to reduce the carbon impact of your establishment. If you do a lot of take-out, using these packages instead of their disposable equivalents will save a lot of waste.
3. Create social media engagement
The community that you manage to create on social networks contributes to the loyalty of a large part of your customers.
A restaurant's online presence has become an essential part of its continued success. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: Depending on your activity, choose the relevant social networks that will attract your target audience.
In addition to publications and stories, social networks allow you to exchange with your community, to find out more about their desires/needs.
Highlight your different business accounts with different types of customers, by posting flyers with a QR code leading to your social networks for example.
4. Communicate by email and SMS
A very effective way to build customer loyalty is to practice good communication (whether by email, SMS, or WhatsApp). At strategic times, such as birthdays or weekends, think about communicating about restaurant news, a promotion that
5. Take advantage of recommendation sites
Recommendation sites (such as TripAdvisor) also contribute to the loyalty of your customers
For you to promote your restaurant on TripAdvisor, you should:
Accumulate good reviews and comments
Rework your customer service in the dining room
Add photos of your dishes on the site
Standardise all online information
6. Offer a loyalty card
Customers will be there for sure if they know that after five visits to your restaurant, the sixth is offered for free, for example. It is with loyalty cards that you can offer this kind of incentive.
Today there are POS systems that offer loyalty features, such as Point of Sale Pro by SumUp.
7. Organise events
And finally, convincing your customers to come back again requires original ideas. Even by serving the best dishes, you can make the experience even more enticing with added value. Musical guests, themed evenings, meal offers for groups—organise an event to encourage your guests to come back.
Are you looking for other techniques to retain your customers and attract new ones? This white paper will help you promote your restaurant.
Step 1 of 1
Digitalising your restaurant in 4 steps
From setting up your online business to financing your digital transformation: discover all the tips you need to make your day-to-day life easier and respond to new consumer habits.
