Turning a newly acquired customer into a loyal one is always tricky. Incorporating multiple marketing strategies or loyalty programs to reward your loyal customers are two of the most popular methods restaurants use to keep their customers. Imagine you enter a restaurant, and a cashier knows your order by heart or greets you by your name. Starbucks does just that! It’s something that customers love.
Imagine you enter a restaurant, and the cashier knows your favourite seat with a view of the seafront You would want to stay longer at that restaurant. Also, you might take your friends there the next time just to have the same exclusive experience. This is customer loyalty. Brands use several programs to keep rewarding their loyal customers and for making them stay. After all, a loyal customer is likely to spend more and refer his friends and family than a newly acquired customer!
Let’s learn about different loyalty programs that you can incorporate at your restaurant.
Incorporating A Loyalty Program At Your Restaurant
Returning customers are crucial to a restaurant’s success. It is a very well known fact that loyal customers tend to have a higher CLV or Customer Lifetime Value for restaurants. As with any business, customer retention is a top priority for success in the F&B space.
On similar lines, Harish Mithra of True South says, “Out of every 100 customers coming in my restaurant for the first time, 70 want to come back. Since my staff works very hard to give them an overall great experience, it is a massive success for me.”
Loyalty programs do not ensure customers coming back. The programs only tend to attract customers that like their first experience. Apart from great food, overall dining experience, and excellent customer service, an exciting loyalty program helps to maintain the already built excitement within customers.
Impact Of A Loyalty Program On A Restaurant
Customers are more likely to dine out at a place where they get they get rewarded. That is achieved by incorporating the right loyalty program at your restaurant. These rewards could be anything that the customer can use at your restaurant the next time they visit. Ensure that the customers are utilizing the points they earn at your restaurant. Otherwise, it would all be in vain.
- Repeat customers: A loyal customer spends more than a newly attained customer
- Word of mouth: One loyal customer can bring you a lot many more since word of mouth marketing still works the best!
- Brand image: It helps to build a better brand image of your restaurant.
- Better ROI: Using a restaurant loyalty program at your restaurant will generate better ROI as it has a direct impact on the sales made.
- Rapport with customers: Customers love being recognized and rewarded. Nurturing your customers through a loyalty program would help you build a rapport with them.
One of our loyalty partners, Xeno, believes that incorporating a loyalty program at your restaurant could help you increase your restaurant sales from 30-70%. Along with that, it also tends to increase in customer retention from about 15-25%.
List Of The Most Preferred Loyalty Programs for Restaurants
Here is a list of the most preferred loyalty program for restaurants, and reasons why they work.
1) Posist
While trying to engage with the customer, a loyalty program should also be able to make life easier for them. Posist’s loyalty program offers you just that! It has an effortless rewarding process, an easy award system and an easier reward redemption process. So it’s not just earning loyalty points that is important for them, but burning them easily that actually makes it top the list of the best loyalty programs!
2) Reelo
3) Xeno
Xeno believes in understanding customers’ needs and prioritizing them for creating a personalized experience for them. This is why the loyalty program has caught attention from too many restaurant owners. The program uses hundreds of attributes to personalize customer profiles and offer them deals according to their needs. What works best for Xeno is the gamifying experience that the brand has launched to engage its customers.
4) Capillary
What works for Capillary as a restaurant loyalty program is that it goes beyond points and vouchers to reward guests. The program offers its loyal customers VIP experiences at their favorite restaurant. The restaurants can configure the loyalty program according to their needs, Options include free dessert, skip the queue for reservations, etc.
5) Mobikon
The Artificial Intelligence tool that the loyalty brand uses helps them to understand customer engagement with a restaurant and predict their next move. Along with that, Mobikon encourages customers to burn points by continually reminding them that they have gained a particular set of points. The program also indicates various ways in which the points can be consumed, which sometimes results in upselling their orders, or the restaurant earning more.
6) Mloyal
Aiming at an ROI of 8x, the Mloyal loyalty program has personalized apps that help to engage customers better. Using the program, you can fetch your customers’ reports in real-time and make better data-driven decisions. You can configure the loyalty program according to your restaurant needs. For instance, you can go for a point-based, frequency-based, discount based, or even an item-based loyalty program, whatever floats your boat!
7) Receptio
Built to serve restaurants of all sizes and formats, Receptio helps in aggregating customer data on one platform and then utilizing it to run campaigns.
8) Preferred Patron
Preferred Patron gives you control over all your operations. Unlike other restaurant loyalty programs, this program lets customers set up their mobile loyalty app around your brand. The loyalty program works best because it prioritizes communication with consumers over everything. Using the program, you can send out alerts and messages to consumers when they reach a rewarding milestone. The main features of this loyalty program are real-time reporting and omnichannel communications.
9) Lightspeed
Restaurateurs who are stepping into the restaurant industry for the first time must consider Lightspeed as their loyalty program partner. It is a rebranding of Reup, and now has integrated solutions for pet stores, boutiques, Quick Serve Restaurants and fine dining restaurants. The program includes 24/7 support in case you need help with setting it up or are stuck with any of its features. Under this loyalty program, your customers can earn points only by giving out their phone numbers.
10) AppInstitute
AppInstitute gives your customers an option to choose between stamps or points. Since many times a restaurateur can be confused between the two kinds of loyalty programs (Stamp-based or points-based), isn’t it ideal that you let the customers decide? While using the program, customers score a stamp by making a purchase or earn points by checking in on the restaurant’s app. It becomes their choice instead of yours!
11) Upserve
What intriguing about Upserve is that the customers’ credit cards work as their loyalty cards. This way, the loyalty program is easy to join and customize. Along with that, the loyalty program is a powerful tool that offers clients with a mobile app as well. The program’s ease of use and interactive graphics makes it a success!
All in all, what you need to keep in mind is that loyalty programs are to show your customers you care. After all, your entire success depends on the response you get from your customers.
Once you decide on getting a loyalty program for your restaurant, you must focus on two things: one, incorporation of customer data through your restaurant management software. And two, marketing your loyalty campaign for customers to start using it. Without these two, even the best loyalty programs could be a failure!
