For a successful restaurant business, it is not enough to prepare delicious meals and sell them at low prices. Attracting new customers to a restaurant and earning the loyalty of regular guests is one of the main tasks of a good restaurateur. But how can you win their trust?
Why fight for guests?
Restaurant business analysts claim that the average number of so-called loyal guests, that is, people who visit a particular restaurant on a regular basis (for example, once or twice a month), is about 15% of the total number of visitors. At the same time, such guests provide the institution with up to half of the total profit, since their average check, as a rule, is slightly higher than that of guests who came for the first time. In addition, loyal guests allow the restaurant owner to count on a relatively constant income, despite the seasonal downturns and crises.
Loyalty programs for prestigious restaurants should not include various “discount” promotions, as this will negatively affect their image of elite establishments.
It is obvious that it is very important to form a pool of loyal customers, since the competition in the restaurant business is quite high, which means that in order to survive and prosper, a restaurant needs regular guests who will not only regularly visit the restaurant themselves, but also recommend it to friends, relatives, and colleagues. Traditionally, various programs for building and maintaining loyalty are much cheaper than the work of attracting new customers to a restaurant.
Gaining trust
In order for people who come to a restaurant to become its regular guests, several important things are necessary. First of all, you need to satisfy their expectations from visiting the institution. As a rule, restaurant guests expect a certain level of quality, service and attention, according to the money spent. The challenge for the restaurant is to fully meet these expectations.
However, this is only the first step: of course, it will lead to the fact that your guest will be satisfied, but trust is still far away. You need to develop a loyalty reward program that will bring satisfied guests to your establishment over and over again. These can be various discount cards with cumulative discounts or a point program that allows guests to receive free meals after accumulating a certain number of points. In addition, you should not neglect the sending of invitations and gifts by SMS and e-mail. This is especially true for solemn occasions, for example, birthdays. Naturally, this requires the collection of personal data of visitors, which is most often carried out by questioning during the issuance of a frequent guest card.
An effective way to gain trust is to address a regular guest by name, which can also be recognized indirectly, for example, by reading on a plastic card.
With the development of social networks, feedback began to play an important role, expressed in the reviews of visitors to a particular restaurant on the Internet, as well as the reaction of the restaurant administration to these reviews. Even an unsatisfied guest can be attracted to a restaurant once again if you correctly respond to his negative review, offer compensation or a discount. In principle, people respond favorably to any show of attention, from a meeting with a restaurant director in the lobby to a polite response to a negative review.
