Customer loyalty in restaurants involves more than simply securing repeat customers — achieving true loyalty requires a strategic approach that allows you to transform regular visitors into brand ambassadors. A loyal customer is one who will not only order food from your restaurant on a regular basis, but will also share your content online, talk about how much they love their meals to their friends and actively work to support your business.
Identifying and implementing the key strategies required for achieving restaurant loyalty will help you position yourself for success in the food and beverage sector.
Understanding Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty refers to the strong, positive relationship that develops between a restaurant and its regular guests. In the restaurant industry, loyalty extends beyond repeat customers. It exists when a customer is a true brand advocate. Loyal customers actively work to promote your restaurant to others. For instance, a loyal customer might share a detailed picture of their favorite meal on their Instagram story, showing their followers just how delicious your food is.
According to the National Restaurant Association, customer loyalty programs help establish and maintain loyalty among a targeted base of consumers. In fact, recent data reveals that 52% of restaurant customers say they participate in loyalty programs, and 96% of reward program users agree it’s an effective way to save money.
The Value of Loyal Customers
As a food and beverage entrepreneur, creating a loyalty program and actively working to develop loyal customers is an investment of your time and resources. However, you will find that this investment pays off in dividends. Loyal customers can help your brand:
- Increase revenue.
- Improve brand visibility and recognition.
- Enhance resilience during challenging economic conditions.
In addition, when you actively work to create a dynamic and appealing loyalty program, you will find that your customer retention rates grow, your regular customers will be willing to spend more at your establishment, and you will be able to collect valuable data that you can use to improve loyalty overall.
Factors that Influence Customer Loyalty
Understanding the factors that influence customer loyalty will help you build a business that will attract and retain devoted customers. Customer loyalty is influenced not only by high-quality products but also by personalized service. A customer is going to be more loyal to a restaurant when they enjoy a delicious meal in a welcoming atmosphere where they receive attentive service. In the food and beverage sector, the value of an experience is determined by both the price of the meal and by the overall dining experience.
Strategies to Increase Customer Loyalty
As you begin to build your business plan and bring your vision for a new restaurant to life, you will want to focus on the most effective strategies for achieving and increasing customer loyalty. Many of the most successful restaurants, both locally and nationally, tend to prioritize customer loyalty as a key focus. These brands are always looking for new ways to offer added value for their most loyal guests.
Prioritize Exceptional Food and Service
Product quality rests at the core of customer loyalty, with all food and beverage consumers seeking products that they love from the brands that they trust. As you begin to launch your new food and beverage business, you will want to develop processes that allow you to consistently deliver high-quality food and offer excellent customer service. The key to providing exceptional food and service is to monitor inventory levels, invest in high-quality ingredients and products, maintain food safety standards, prioritize staff training and develop a welcoming atmosphere.
Build a Strong Brand Identity
Today’s consumers are not only looking for a restaurant brand that offers an excellent meal, but they also want to support a brand that they can trust. Gen Z is one of the largest generations of consumers today, and they are hyper-focused on supporting brands that are socially aware and culturally responsive. You can develop a positive brand identity for your food or beverage business by creating a consistent brand message, relying heavily on visual elements that are clean and appealing and providing a consistent customer service experience.
Implement a Customer Loyalty Program
One of the most effective ways to establish and maintain customer loyalty in modern restaurant brands is to develop and implement a customer loyalty program. The best practices for developing loyalty programs include:
- Keeping it simple. Your loyalty program should feel easy and intuitive to the consumer.
- Making it accessible and user-friendly. Rather than requiring your customers to carry a specific loyalty program card, allow them to automatically update their purchases via a mobile app.
- Covering the details. Create an FAQ page that outlines the parameters of your loyalty program.
- Creating loyalty tiers. Giving customers the ability to earn higher levels of rewards through continued patronage will encourage repeat visits.
The National Restaurant Association notes that top restaurant brands, such as Chipotle and Burger King, have been able to quickly develop effective loyalty programs by offering new members a perk for signing up. Creative and innovative ideas can help your brand stand out in a crowded market of loyalty programs.
Leverage Technology to Enhance the Customer Experience
Technology continues to revolutionize the food and beverage industry, with customers coming to expect mobile apps and online ordering as the norm rather than the exception or the alternative. The National Restaurant Association recently released post-pandemic data highlighting the impact that technology has had on the industry, with some of the findings showing that:
- 76% of restaurant operators feel that advanced technology can give them a competitive edge.
- 8 in 10 customers placing a delivery order wish to do so on a mobile app.
- The vast majority of restaurant customers are comfortable ordering their food or paying for their meal on a tablet.
Recognizing the important role that technology plays in developing customer loyalty, it’s important to create a brand experience that incorporates the latest technology and streamlines the experience for your guests. Online reservations, mobile ordering and app-based rewards programs are crucial in today’s competitive landscape.
Actively Seek and Respond to Customer Feedback
In the social media age, customer feedback can support your ability to develop customer loyalty. Encourage customers to post reviews and photos of your food on popular review sites, such as Yelp or Google. In addition, try to respond to all reviews — even the negative ones — to showcase your commitment to customer service. Customer feedback allows you to make data-driven decisions as you refine your customer loyalty strategies.
Create a Sense of Community and Belonging
Your restaurant could become more than just a place to grab a quick meal when you make an intentional effort to create a sense of community. Fostering a sense of community within dining spaces can naturally encourage an increase in customer loyalty. Some ways to build a strong community at your food or beverage startup are to host events that attract new customers, partner with local organizations to serve the community and interact with your customers on social media.
Remain Consistent
At the end of the day, consistency is key to creating and maintaining customer loyalty. Delivering high-quality food and prioritizing exceptional service allows restaurants to build trust among their customer bases.
Personalize the Customer Experience
By relying on technology to implement customer loyalty programs, restaurants can collect valuable data that can be used to personalize the customer experience. Collecting and storing data allows you to save your customers’ preferences, curate personalized recommendations and acknowledge special occasions, such as birthdays or anniversaries.
Measuring and Analyzing Customer Loyalty
Fortunately, you don’t have to rely on anecdotal evidence alone to measure and interpret customer loyalty levels at your restaurant. Tracking and measuring customer loyalty metrics can help you assess the effectiveness of loyalty-building strategies and continue to refine your tactics to grow loyalty among your customer base.
Key Metrics for Measuring Customer Loyalty
Identifying the key metrics for measuring customer loyalty can allow a restaurant to better synthesize the impact of its loyalty program and the strength of overall customer loyalty. Some key metrics to monitor include:
- Customer retention rate
- Repeat purchase frequency
- Customer lifetime value
- Net promoter score (NPS)
Analyzing Customer Data to Gain Insights
Aside from simply collecting customer data, analyzing the data you have harvested can help you better understand your customers’ perspectives. Data analytics reports can provide insight into consumer behavior at your restaurant, customer preferences and overall satisfaction ratings. By analyzing this data, you might find ways to improve the overall customer experience, which naturally helps increase customer loyalty. Most modern brands rely on customer relationship management software (CRM) to collect and analyze valuable data as well as generate actionable reports.
Learn How to Organically and Strategically Improve Restaurant Loyalty at Johnson & Wales University
Developing customer loyalty in restaurants is paramount to your success as an entrepreneur. At Johnson & Wales University, we offer an Online Bachelor’s in Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship that explores restaurant loyalty and will equip you with the skills you need to learn how to increase customer loyalty in restaurants. This skills-based, relevant curriculum effectively prepares you for success in this dynamic and growing industry.
For more information about completing your degree online, complete the Request Info form, call 855-JWU-1881, or email [email protected].