How To Manage Restaurant Loyalty Programs
It is not a secret that restaurant reward programs can keep loyal customers coming back for more, and in turn, keep your establishment open for business.
So we made a list of 7 tips for those who are in the beginning stages of launching a restaurant loyalty program or want to improve their current program.
1. Initiate a Loyalty App
A smart loyalty program app will allow customers to sign up for your program, keep track of their progress and redeem their rewards right from their smartphone. It is popular to use mobile coupons among customers because they have everything they need on their smartphones and don’t have to worry about forgetting or losing their coupons.
Loyalty apps benefit not only customers but restaurants also. Most rewards program apps provide restaurants with customer data, so you can learn more about your regulars and their preferences by using the data from your customer rewards app.
2. Make Your Reward Program Simple
Remember that customers wouldn’t love to jump through hoops just to participate in your restaurant loyalty program. So you should keep things as simple as possible to make your program user-friendly.
It must be simple for customers to earn points and understandable how the reward system works. Take note that if customers don’t understand how to sign up or redeem rewards, they’re not going to participate.
3. Concentrate on Program Marketing
You also should remember that you won’t get the results you want if your customers don’t know about it even if you have the best loyalty program in the business.
So it’s better to make sure that you’re promoting your rewards program via:
- Social media
- Your website
- Advertisements
4. Reward Every Visit
Remember it’s important for customers to feel like they’re working towards achieving a goal. They are also more likely to dine at a restaurant where they’re already a member of a loyalty program, especially if they know they’ll earn points each time they visit. So rewarding clients for every visit is frequently used by most successful loyalty programs for restaurants. But it’s also important to find a balance and not to go overboard with it.
5. Give Personalized Experiences To Loyal Customers
Many popular reward programs contain both a points-earnings system and personalized incentives, such as birthday rewards.
You will need the customer’s data to provide personalized rewards. There are a few things you can do to get the data you need:
- Rewards for the completed profile. Customers can earn points for filling out their profiles, which may ask for their: gender, birthday, location, age, etc.
- Interactive quizzes and activities can also help you learn more about your customers. These improvements will help you learn more about customer preferences and habits, which will ultimately help you offer personalized rewards and suggestions.
6. Instruct Your Staff About the Program
Promotion is an essential part of the restaurant loyalty program’s success. If you provide a little training and education, your staff can assist in the promotion of your program. It’s important for your staff to understand the purpose of loyalty programs, how your program works and how it benefits the customer.
If you want your staff to assist in promoting your program, they must understand:
- The program’s rewards structure. The staff must know clearly if customers earn points for each dollar they spend, or if they get rewarded with a free item after so many visits.
- How rewards are redeemed and sent out.
- How the rewards program or an app works from a customer’s perspective. This way, they can answer questions and possibly assist with sign-ups.
- How to handle customer objections to signing up and answer questions.
- The most common questions about the program and how to answer them.
7. Measure Your Success
The most important thing in launching a rewards program is to clearly know your aims. Remember that if you don’t know your goals, you can’t possibly know if your rewards program is succeeding.
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