One of the key streams of restaurants is to keep their customers from coming back and reordering again. However, it would take some effort for restaurant owners (big or small) in giving incentives to keep them from returning.
Running a well-formed loyalty rewards program in your customized mobile app can be helpful in assisting business owners to be ahead of their game and increase revenue. Besides, online ordering, a loyalty program can be an added feature to allure the customers and install the customized mobile app.
But, let us understand what a customer loyalty program is, what are the tools to promote the program, and what are the winnable loyalty program strategies for most customers.
What is a Restaurant Loyalty Program?
Restaurant Loyalty Program is a great added feature where customers can earn more after spending more money from your restaurant. These incentives can go anywhere from getting welcome food, free appetizers, getting a percentage off from their next order, up to getting free restaurant merchandise.
What are the Tools to Promote a Restaurant Loyalty Program?
- Offer a reward for signing up
Depending on what you can offer like a free item (a welcome food or drink) or even a percentage off their next purchase, these steps can drive your customer to sign up for your loyalty program.
- Advertise on social media accounts and restaurant newsletter
Make sure to use your social media channels to promote this program. You can also notify them through email marketing or text messages about this program. A direct link or QR code to the signup form is helpful for customers for easy sign up on this loyalty program.
- Speak about the restaurant loyalty programs
Train your servers and restaurant staff to talk about the loyalty program to the customers as a way of promoting them. Give them information as they help the customers sign up for this loyalty program.
- Tie the restaurant loyalty programs with phone numbers or email addresses
Customers can use their phone numbers and email addresses to sign up and they use this information every time they visit to get loyalty points. The mobile app can be a helpful tool to easily keep track of the points accumulated and exchange them for rewards.
What are the Winning Strategies for a Successful Restaurant Loyalty Program?
- Offer a reward just by signing up
Offering a free welcome food or drink or discount coupon is the easiest way to lure your customers to join your loyalty program. Instantly gratifying them with a perk is a straightforward process to attract customers participation.
- Notify customers about their loyalty points
Using mobile push notifications, restaurants can use this to inform customers of their expiring loyalty points or when they are almost on a brink of reclaiming an item, driving customers to make an order.
- Earn points in exchange for a free dish
Since repeat customers tend to spend more on your restaurant, compensate them for a premium dish in exchange for gaining a number of loyalty points.
- Loyalty points to get discount codes or coupons
After earning a number of loyalty points, customers can also convert them into discounts that will be more favorable for customers. This will likely attract your guests to spend more because of the savings that they receive.
- Earning points to get free delivery
After several orders, restaurants can also captivate customers by offering free meal delivery, This can lure busy individuals who want to provide sumptuous meals to guests without the hassle of picking it up directly from the restaurant.
- Give a complimentary item on special occasions
Restaurants can provide complimentary gifts like a free dish or dessert on the customer’s birthdate or birthmonth.
- Receive a free restaurant merchandise
It is a good strategy to help loyal customers to exchange their points with brand merchandise such as t-shirts, caps, umbrellas, etc. This is also a good and free marketing strategy for your business.
Final Thoughts
Since it costs less to spend on repeat customers than to acquire new ones, a successful loyalty program is a good way to motivate customers to repeatedly buy. And, a restaurant loyalty program is one of the secret sauces to keep customers from coming back, improve your brand image and increase your revenue. Talk to one of our DevourNow team members to help you set up your own loyalty program, enhance retention, and improve loyalty with the specific goal of gaining revenue for your business.