As consumers, haven’t we all gone crazy over black Friday sales and discount coupons on our favorite brands? That’s exactly what your customers are seeking when they visit your restaurant for their favorite food! Hit their right spot, and they become loyal to your brand forever. And choosing the right loyalty program is your way to go!

In 2016, the restaurant market was worth more than 3.09 lakh crores, and the food-service industry is expected to grow to a whopping 5 lakh crores in 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10%.

In a booming market, losing customers is a cold pie nobody wants to eat. Given that, retaining customers can actually boost profits by 25%, which makes it doubly crucial to retain existing customers. This is where the loyalty programs sweep in.

Steps to create an engaging loyalty program:

Loyalty programs have proved to be a good way to make customers visit your restaurant over and over again. They have to appeal to the customers on a personal level.
The tech-savvy generation might not be quite thrilled with the coupon loyalty programs as much. So how does one build an upgraded loyalty program that appeals to the customers and drives sales?
As per the statistics of Aron Allen and Associates, coffee giant Starbuck’s ‘My Starbucks Rewards Loyalty Program’ was launched in 2010. It later added a digital component and went on to garner $1.2 billion in customer funds as of the first quarter of 2016. In 2017 the second quarter rewards accounted for 36 % of US Starbucks sales.

Identify the Right Program

Loyalty programs impact profits and need to be structured in a way that suits your business model. Be it visit based, spend based, or a combination of the two.

The QSR Magazine reports say that Panera introduced a tech-driven ‘integrated guest experience’ at an outlay of $42 million in 2012. The tech boosted sales, reduced the food receiving time to less than five 5 minutes from 6-9 minutes, and saved 1 – 4 minutes per order.

Make the Best Use of Data

There is nothing like the effective use of customer data to make a good loyalty program work great for your business.
Guest and Reserve apps, available in the market, enable you to deep-dive into the customers’ past visits and orders, their preferences in terms of dish preparation, seating arrangements, and so on.
You can also tag your customers in your system so that the arrival of a priority customer does not catch you on the wrong foot. Customers who visit your restaurant also receive promotional offers and feedback communications.
These apps have the analytics feature to generate insights on average waiting time, optimal table layouts, and more to help your brand get a competitive edge.

As per the statistics provided by the National Restaurant Association, tech is the rage for millennials with 32% factoring it in their choice of QSRs and 28% factoring in for their choice of full-service restaurants.

Keep It Easy with Feedback Apps

Feedback Apps cut out paper hassles and let you focus on the feedback that is valuable for your business. With these apps, you can get better insights on customer preferences. A bad experience can easily be neutralized on the spot with a great feedback app.
A contemporary, seamless feedback app integrated with your loyalty program will be simple, highly customizable, and give you insights on customer behavior for smarter marketing. Further, it will enable you to enhance the customer experience in different ways to win positive online and social media reviews.

36% of diners factor in information from review sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp, while 34% use social media information in their decisions.

Keep Your Staff in the loop

Well executed loyalty programs have one thing in common – a well-informed staff. Even if your loyalty program uses all the bells and whistles that go with the app, you just cannot afford to miss out on the human element.

So, before you roll out your loyalty program, take your staff into confidence, and seek their inputs. Your staff may be able to give you amazing insights into various aspects of customer behavior, preferences, etc., and their suggestions might prove to be extremely valuable for the success of your loyalty program.

Reward Programs are profitable for every business

Reward programs offered by restaurants drive traffic, track customer spending habits, help delight existing customers, and convert them to long-term customers. Be it a massive multi-outlet business or a small stand-alone one, every restaurant should offer a loyalty program to accelerate their business through repeat customers.

A well-planned loyalty program will let your customers relax, knowing that they’ll always earn more rewards – without taking a hit to their wallet. And for you, you can rest assured that your existing customers will be your everlasting ones.

Owing to the market conditions, opening a restaurant is a challenging task today. The leading restaurant brands, who have been in the industry for a considerable amount of time, can also hit a bottleneck at some point, which encourages them to consider a second opinion. A restaurant consultant offers this second opinion.

A restaurant consultant offers credibility and experience to your restaurant.

Imagine this:

You are sitting in your restaurant wondering about the menu. You had designed a menu yourself almost 6 months back. However, you are unable to highlight the USPs of your menu. You had specially designed 10 separate cuisines with your chef which are currently only available in your restaurant. However, very few customers are buying these cuisines due to unknown reasons. Further, you are unable to manage the pricing of cuisines, which is important as you wish to achieve a considerable amount of profit and gain the ability to offer a handsome salary to your employees.

In a situation like this, what can you do? Is it right to remove the self-designed cuisines from the menu? Or is the more viable option to increase the prices of every cuisine?

Only a restaurant consultant can tell. Let’s see how:

A restaurant consultant is a broad term used for multiple industry verticals. Restaurant consultants have a specific domain of their own. For instance, some consult on the financial matter and others offer guidance on menu design, interior design, and other aspects related to the design of the restaurant. You have to choose your area of consultation and then find the correct person for this work.

Check out how you can find the right consultant for your restaurant.

Start with the preliminary search. Contact only those consultants who seem relevant according to your restaurant and its specific needs. In this case, it will be menu design support and financials. You can also take tips from other restaurant owner friends who have hired a consultant previously.

When you have shortlisted a group of people who match your requirements, you need to narrow down the list. This can be achieved by explaining your problem to each and asking how they can find a solution. You would know when you hear an experienced person talk about the management of a menu. They would offer logical solutions such as redesigning the menu to highlight self-designed cuisines. In this step, it is best to narrow down to only a few people.

Ask for a proposal and previous work details. Analyze these proposals, ask questions, and go online to check the reviews. In fact, you can reach out to their previous collaborations (with other restaurants) to understand the quality of their work.

These steps will help you shortlist 2-3 restaurant consultants, who can resolve your issues and challenges. Below we have given some additional tips for finding a restaurant consultant.

Tips for Choosing the Right Restaurant Consultant

Define Your Requirements!

Sit with all the stakeholders and write down your requirements. In this scenario, it is the inability to sell self-designed cuisines and manage rates of these cuisines.

It is necessary to know the requirements before you reach out to any particular restaurant consultant.

Research

After you know your requirements, you would be able to analyze the type of consultant you need. For instance, a startup restaurant would need someone who can help them with the entire setup.

Once you know the type of consultant you need, you can start your research.

Closely Scrutinize Proposals

Analyze the proposals thoroughly. This is not a normal task such as arranging the tables in the morning. You actually need to go through the full proposal to understand the proficiency of the consultant.

Remember, a proposal can tell a lot about the experience of the consultant.

Ask as Many Questions as You Can

Ask a lot of questions. Any experienced consultant would answer your questions with patience and knowledgeable insights. Examples of a few questions may be:

Do you understand our model?
Do you understand our requirements?
What innovative change can we bring?
Give us some referrals.
Tell us what is the major change you want to implement for our restaurant.

Find a Reliable Restaurant Consultant

Every consultant-customer relationship is built on reliability and trust. If you are not able to trust your consultant, it is highly unlikely for you to work with them. Hence, it is necessary to find a trustworthy consultant to manage your requirements.

To offer additional support to your consultant, utilize inresto restaurant automation software. Using this system will enable your consultant to work faster and achieve better results.

Month: November 2019

Why Your Loyalty Program is Not Creating Loyal Customers?