The most successful restaurants are those that create a consistent stream of repeat customers.
According to a survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association, repeat customers make up 71% of sales at quick service restaurants, 68% of sales at fast-casual restaurants, 64 percent at casual-dining restaurants, 63% at family-dining eateries, and 51% at fine-dining restaurants.
As you can tell, whether you’re running a fine-dining or quick service establishment, repeat customers make up a significant portion of your revenue.
So how do you start creating those crucial repeat customers? Well, it’s not so simple. Becoming a repeat customer is tied to loyalty. And in order to foster loyalty, you need to develop a culture that surrounds it.
To demonstrate, here’s a little personal example.
A few years back, I used to frequent a local barbecue joint with a few friends. It’s one of the few places I’d consider myself having been a truly loyal customer for. Like clockwork, we’d go there every single week, rain or shine.
All of us were so loyal to this place, that if any one us suggesting going to a different restaurant for barbecue, we would immediately shoot the idea down. In our minds, there was no other option. We were so dedicated to this place that we wouldn’t even consider other options. It was like sacrilege!
That’s what true loyalty looks like. True loyalty isn’t built in a day, and it’s not built because of any one individual factor. It’s built because you’ve carefully developed a loyalty culture over a long period of time.
Our loyalty for this specific restaurant was developed for a multitude of reasons.
The first reason that pulled us in was word-of-mouth. We initially visited this restaurant off a recommendation. It sure worked. Being the barbecue aficionados that we are, we had to check it out. And we instantly fell in love.
We’re not the only people that word-of-mouth works on. According to a Nielsen study, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends or family above all other forms of advertising. That’s a statistic that can’t be ignored.
The first time I visited this place, I had a pretty awesome barbecue platter. But the platter wasn’t what made me a loyal customer. It was rib night. This place had the absolute best baby back ribs that any of us had ever had in our entire lives. The kicker was that you could only get these ribs on Wednesday.
To top that off, Wednesday night was also bluegrass night. Every week, this restaurant would hire a bluegrass band, banjo and all, to play for the whole night. I don’t even like bluegrass. But between the band, the food, the friends, and the atmosphere, a sense of loyalty developed.
Build Loyalty With CoGoBuzz
With CoGoBuzz, creating a culture of loyalty becomes infinitely easier. Our affordable solution uses WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions to incentivize customers to return to your restaurant, even after just a single visit.
Leveraging your in-store WiFi, we’ll get you more Facebook followers automatically. Because customers login through WiFi with their Facebook profile, Email, or phone number, we even produce fully realized customer profiles, allowing you to optimize your marketing, and personalization on a much deeper level. Check out the rest of our website to learn more!