How to Build a Successful Loyalty Program for your Restaurant
One way to boost the patronage, sales turnover, and profit margins of your restaurant business is to incorporate a viable loyalty program. Your loyalty program rewards customers with several benefits for being loyal to your restaurant.
A loyalty program can be drawn up for all sizes of restaurants, including simple mom & pop shops, fast-food chains, or high-end restaurants.
This guide shows you how to set up a loyalty program for your restaurant regardless of its operational size.
What is a Loyalty Program?
A restaurant's typical loyalty program is drawn up to reward loyal customers for their continued patronage. A loyalty program aims to secure the patronage of existing customers while providing an incentive for new customers to either dine in your restaurant or order food items online.
A loyalty program is tool restaurant owners use to improve traffic, sales revenue, and margins.
How to Increase Customer Loyalty in Restaurant
There are many ways to increase customer loyalty in your restaurant. For starters, a vibrant menu list can work wonders in boosting restaurant customer loyalty. Customers will throng your restaurant if they know there are always tasty delicacies to choose from.
But having a dynamic menu list is not the only way of gaining customer loyalty. Some of the other ways of securing loyal customers include:
Ambiance: The atmosphere created in your restaurant can be quite appealing to your customers. You could stick to a theme or change themes every other day if you can. Playing soothing music in the background can also be a great appeal. You should ensure that your restaurant is cool in hot summer months and warm in cold winter months. Your aim should always be to give your restaurant a freshness that customers can relate to.
Service: Nothing beats prompt, courteous, and professional service. You need to train and retrain your staff to provide decent service to all your customers and at all times. Teach your employees about different marketing and selling techniques, such as; upselling, cross-selling, and suggestive selling techniques.
Entertainment: You could incorporate some side entertainment to help attract customers to your restaurant. For example, you can have a playroom for kids, light entertainment like karaoke, a mariachi band, or stand-up comedy.
Acknowledge Milestones: If you know your customers well enough, you will get vital data that will help you secure their long-term loyalty. For example, you can offer special discounts to the customer on their birthdays.
Loyalty Program: You can introduce loyalty programs to your customers. These programs will reward loyal customers with freebies like free meals and drinks. Customers can gain points each time they order a meal at your restaurant. Your customers should be fully aware of the rewards they are entitled to for each point-milestone level.
What makes the Best Restaurant Rewards Programs?
In learning how to set up a loyalty program, you first need to know what makes the best restaurant customer loyalty programs. Some of the elements of a top-notch loyalty restaurant and lounge program include:
#1. Zero Paperwork: You need to avoid the complications of paperwork. Make sure the program is entirely digital. Most customers do not have the patience to file paperwork.
#2. Easy Accessibility: Your customers need to be able to access their information regarding your loyalty program easily. Customers should be able to check online directly on your official restaurant website or by using your restaurant loyalty app on their smartphones or tablets.
#3. Diversity of Rewards: What makes the best restaurant rewards programs lies in your ability to diversify the expected rewards on the program. Customers need to feel like the reward for their loyalty is worthy of continued patronage. For example, you can award cash, meal tickets, and so on for each point-milestone level.
#4. Multiple Reward System: Diversifying your reward system is great, but you can also reward your customers with numerous benefits whenever they cross a particular level of points. The best loyalty programs offer customers myriad rewards that could seem overwhelming at times but go a long way in winning the loyalty of your customers.
#5. Special Rewards: Special rewards can be introduced in your loyalty programs. For example, a special reward may involve your customers having the opportunity to publicly play a wheel of fortune game where they stand the chance of walking away with fabulous cash prizes.
Loyalty Program Ideas For Your Restaurant
There are many loyalty program ideas that you could explore for your restaurant today. You could adopt one or more ideas, but it is advisable to do some research and test marketing to ascertain the feasibility of the customer loyalty program ideas before committing to any one or combination of ideas.
Some ideas to try out today include:
1. Item-Based Loyalty Program:
With item-based loyalty or food reward programs, your customers can be served food items or meals for FREE when they purchase a particular item or meal from your restaurant a certain number of times.
For example, if you own a fast-food restaurant, your item-based loyalty program could reward your customers with a free hotdog if they buy 5 hotdogs from your fast-food joint. You could also award food items to your customers after they accrue specific points.
2. Points-Based Loyalty Program:
This loyalty program idea is characterized by awarding points to customers each time they visit and spend money at your restaurant. Customers can redeem their accumulated points for food items or restaurant merchandise.
For example, a customer with 200 points may be allowed to cash out their points for, say, a USD20 credit, or they may exchange their 200 points for a meal.
3. Promotional Reward Program:
This program does not have to be tied to your customers' spending habits. You can incentivize new and existing customers with a promotional rewards program. You may decide to reward customers with discount promos on special anniversaries, such as; birthday and wedding anniversaries.
Promotional rewards programs help boost traffic, conversion, and sales in your restaurant during a slow period. A promo reward program is often for a limited time only.
4. Online Ordering Loyalty Reward Program:
Many restaurants run an online ordering service system. You can reward those customers that have consistently placed orders with your restaurant online.
For example, customers ordering online can also earn points redeemed for cash, food item(s), or meal rewards. You could also incentivize your customers into placing orders online or via your mobile app under this program.
5. Subscription-Based Loyalty Reward Program:
You can create a membership system for your restaurant and reward active subscribers with a host of goodies whenever they attain a certain membership level.
For example, you could adopt a Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Platinum subscription membership title, with each member offering customers an array of exciting rewards.
These rewards would encourage your customers to continue subscribing to your restaurant business. In time, your customers may even be tempted to increase their membership level to enjoy even more benefits.
In Conclusion
Customer loyalty is the lifeblood of any restaurant. Without the continued patronage of your customers, your restaurant business will not be sustainable. A loyalty reward program is one way to gain and keep customers.
You could run item-based, points-based, promo rewards, online ordering, or subscription-based programs to guarantee your customers' loyalty and ensure your restaurant's long-term success.
It is also essential to ensure that your loyalty program is easy for your customer to access, requires no paperwork, and offers diverse, multiple, and special rewards for the loyalty of your customers.
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