Restaurant Owners have a hard time making strategies for increasing their customer footfalls and even a harder time maintaining their existing customer base. Especially if it's a new restaurant, the strategizing and administrative problems are harder to sort than it looks like. Let's walk you through techniques and tricks to solve this problem that will help you in the short as well as the long run. We are listing our brilliant hacks and points to help you boost your customer loyalty. With so many apps coming up with review sections for restaurants, it's getting easier to send out a message to your audience out there but then again if a restaurateur who is not very well aware of the choices and preferences of their customers, it can greatly affect their footfall, image, and success of your business.
1. Enhance your Decor quality and ambiance
A customer expects a good experience if they are going anywhere to dine out, It's on you to decide how you want to provide that seamless experience to your loyal customers. Word of mouth goes a long way in promoting your business and trust me when we say this, if somebody had a good experience at your restaurant, they ARE going to talk about it. People like clean and a beautiful place over unorganized dirty places. They evidently like great music over shitty music. Make sure you spend investment and time in deciding how you want the place to look.
Food is an experience in itself but nobody can take away from the fact that if your food is good but the place is not attractive enough, nobody would want to come to your restaurant and eat. Invite local musicians and bands to give performances so that your customers resonate with them. Keep refreshing your playlist according to new music. If you can allot days according to themes and different genres of music, doing that is perfect because you will attract a different target audience each day and expand the diversity of your customers. Make the interiors of your restaurant shine out, rather than going the contemporary way, buy paintings from artists that are lesser known and put their work on display. That will intrigue customers and be a vision for the eye.
2. Design a menu to promote food & drink pairings
With an increase and beer lovers and wine enthusiasts, the budding boom of breweries has attracted a lot of attention. The same can be done with people who are wine-lovers or gin-crazies. Edit your menu to include drink suggestions with dishes. You can also make wine-infused dishes on the menu for the people who are experimental.
3. Engage your customers through different mechanisms.
Have a one-on-one conversation with your customers, take direct feedback about how they liked the food and experience. Online reviews and feedback forms can also be helpful. This will also help you to compile customer data that can be used later to improve different attributes which you are lacking in, and also contact your customers through different mediums. "Loyalty Program" is a strategy that so many restaurateurs where they add points to their customer's wallet so that it encourages them to come back to the restaurant and use those points.Use discount coupons and vouchers they can't resist o attract fresh customers,
Also Read: Restaurant & Food Trends That Will Dominate The Indian F&B Industry In 2018
4. Consistent service and quality food
You really don't want a customer to have a food-poisoning episode after eating from your joint. So quality and hygiene reign supreme over anything else. Make sure your chefs follow certain hygienic standards while they are preparing the food and the kitchen is clean. Your quality and taste have to be maintained over-time. If it deteriorates, then you sure will lose your loyal customers to your competitors.
5. Make use of higher technological accessibility
Having your own online-ordering platform will definitely increase your sales more than you think it does. Apart from your obvious presence on food-delivery and online delivery apps, this is another way to make sure your customers not only dine at your restaurant but also order in from your restaurant.Customer management has definitely become easier with comprehensive POS systems and CRM applications which send automatic alerts to your customers about their order status and latest offers and discounts respectively, according to their preferences and hence encouraging them to go out more often.
6. Train your employees well - Hospitality matters.
Consistent service and well-trained staff are more important than you think. If your employees greet your customers well, provide an efficient and a fast service, customers take notice and spread the word out there. It’s up to you to do what it takes to keep them talking about how great your restaurant is, how good the food is, how memorable the experience is, etc. If you keep the staff happy, they will keep your customers happy. And a positive warm welcome and instant food delivery will make sure customers visit you again and again.
7. Offer Great Food & Beverages
This is a given and tops the list of attracting and retaining customers. If you have great tasting, scrumptious food and unique cocktails & mocktails to offer, there's no way people wouldn't want to try them. Make sure everything you offer has a unique twist to it. The flavors and taste of your food is something that's never been tried and tested before and it keeps your customers coming back.