How the Experience Changes a Customer’s Attitude Toward your Restaurant

Do you ever wonder what brings customers back to the same restaurant, time and time again?  How is it that one restaurant can be sitting mostly empty at dinner time, while the restaurant across the street is bustling with customers from the moment it opens until the moment it closes?  Is it a difference in quality of food or quality of service?  Or is it something else entirely…?

The answer to this question can be found by looking at customer motivation and what drives them to return to the same establishments, time and time again.  Most respondents, when asked why they choose a particular restaurant, will cite reasons such as quality of the food and price, but if restaurants offer similar prices and quality, they will choose one over the other based on one simple concept – the experience they have while eating there.  

The experience of eating out is crucial to building and maintaining a customer base.  If you want to bring more customers to your establishment, focusing on the customer’s experience while they are there is important.  From the moment they walk in through the door, to the moment they receive their order, to the moment they leave – making sure your customers have a good experience is important in making sure they’ll come back…and that they bring their friends!

Focusing on how well the customer is treated by every staff member with whom they come into contact is important, as is focusing on the comfort and convenience of everything in the place – from how the tables are arranged to how the restrooms are stocked. All of these factors contribute to the overall experience of your customers, and all of these factors are what subtly influence them to either like a place or not like it.  

Growth Through Insight: What 2012 Holds for the Restaurant Industry

The food service and restaurant industry, like many other industries, took a huge hit during the economic downturn that began in 2008.  When people are struggling financially, eating out is one of the first things they cut from their budget.  The result of this is that restaurants that had previously been swarming with customers – particularly high-end restaurants – have experienced decreased numbers in clientele and sales, forcing many to cut back on their quality, or even close down.  

That’s why market researchers have insisted that growth through insight is crucial in order to keep the food services and restaurant industry afloat in tough economic times.  The forecast for 2012 and beyond is that consumers will place growing importance on things like freshness, locally-grown products, and cost, while still demanding excellent quality and service.  

Now that diners are slowly returning and the economy is looking better than it did in 2008, it is important for restaurants to understand how this “growth through insight” principle works – particularly when it comes to ensuring that they will have repeat clientele. According to market research, 2011 saw a significant increase in the number of people who dined out at least once a week – from 49% in 2010 to 70% in 2011, with restaurants that are casual and convenient showing the highest number of increased patronage.  

While the numbers are looking better for the restaurant industry in 2012 than they appeared in 2011, the struggle isn’t exactly easy for many restaurants.  That’s why increased communication with your clientele, and building solid relationships with them, is crucial in making sure your restaurant is a success this year – and for many years to come. 

Loyalty Programs for Effective Marketing

What is the key to effective marketing? Loyalty programs.  A loyalty program is a specially designed program which rewards your best customers for remaining your best customers. Loyalty programs provide your best customers with incentives to keep coming back, often in the form of free select menu items or discounts off the top of their bill the next time they come in for a bite. Loyalty programs are often the reason why your customers choose to visit your restaurant in any given night and not your competitions, and as such they are absolutely necessary if you’re going to run a successful establishment.

So, how can you run a loyalty program? At its most basic level a loyalty program might be nothing more than knowing who your regulars are and hooking them up with the above-mentioned incentives whenever they stop by your venue. Yet this form of loyalty program is only mildly effective. There is no consistency to it. There’s no way to ensure it provides your returning customers with benefits if you aren’t there. And it’s completely unpredictable from your customer’s perspective. If a customer doesn’t know exactly what sort of incentive they will receive for visiting your restaurant then they are less likely to “roll the dice” and drop at a maximal rate.

Instead of applying the above loyalty program, you need to employ a systematized loyalty program, one which provides predictable and reliable benefits. For example, sending your customers a 20% off coupon on their birthday every year creates an incentive pattern they can predict with full assurance.

Reliability and predictability, with the occasional unexpected reward, are the keys to running a successful loyalty program. 

Restaurant Marketing Faux Pas and How to Avoid Them

Restaurant owners are good at a great deal of things, yet they are rarely exceptional marketers. While organic, unsolicited word of mouth is an incredibly important element of marketing a restaurant, you can’t rely on it entirely if you want to create a successful venue, no matter how great the food you sell is. Take a look at some of the most disastrous marketing faux pas and discover how you can avoid them.

The first big, common marketing faux pas among restaurant owners was mentioned above- believing unsolicited word of mouth will drive your business to high profitability. If you want word of mouth to work for you, if you want a steady stream of referrals, then you need to ask for them directly. You can’t simply assume they will occur in the volume you require.

The second, enormous marketing faux pas in the restaurant business is assuming great food is all the marketing you need. People love great food, but unless you offer something different you won’t have a breakout success on your hands. Likewise, in your advertisements you can’t sell your restaurant according to how good it is, how high quality the food is, and how much people enjoy it. People tend to stick with what they like and already know, even if there’s a superior alternative out there. Instead, you need to market what makes your food DIFFERENT than your competition.

Finally, the biggest marketing faux pas performed by nearly every restaurant owner is failing to retain and actively solicit your best customers. If you have customers you love, who come in often, who are a joy to work with, and who spend a lot of money, then you need to actively encourage them to return as often as humanly possible!

5 Ways for Your Restaurant to Become More Profitable

More than just about any other form of business, restaurants are infamous for running on razor-thin margins. It’s for this reason that restaurants, more than any other establishment, must do whatever is necessary to consistently insure their profitability. Here are 5 simple ways you can make your restaurant more profitable, practically overnight.

1.       Train your staff better. Taking it as a given that your kitchen staff is already producing food at the highest possible level of quality, you need to focus your efforts on training your front of house to up sell- guiding your patrons to higher priced items and greater food volume. 

2.       Embrace gadgets. You don’t need us to tell you running a restaurant is a logistical nightmare. But by keeping up-to-date on gadgets and devices you’ll be able to take advantage of advances which allow you to measure and manage every element of your business with greater detail and control than ever before.

3.       Retain your best clients. This is a no-brainer, but it’s a practice so few restaurants actively pursue. By actively working to retain your best customers and encourage repeat visits you will essentially add a guaranteed level of income to your bottom line.

4.       Use the internet. Your restaurant needs to do more than simply post a website and consider its online work finished. Your restaurant needs to take advantage of social media, social networking, email marketing and mobile apps to increase its visibility and to encourage return visits.

5.       Multiply your streams of income. Most restaurants fail because they do one thing for money- they sell food and drinks. There are plenty of alternative methods of making money you can add on to your restaurant’s services, from catering to selling pre-cooked meals in local grocery stores.