Whether you own a quick service restaurant or a high-end dining establishment, staying ahead of your rivals in this highly competitive industry is key.
In addition to your excellent menu offerings and stellar customer service, a customer loyalty program can help to set your eatery above the rest because this type of promotion offers a number of compelling benefits.
What is a loyalty program?
This model has become familiar to most of us in recent decades. Its purpose is to reward regular customers for their business while encouraging one-time visitors to come back more frequently.
The benefits are mutual. Your guest receives discounts, freebies or other promotions for signing up and coming back. Meanwhile, you get the opportunity to leverage the data they provide to enhance your offerings and provide an increasingly more personalized dining experience.
Tracking and maintenance of the program occurs in your POS system for restaurants or manually by using old-fashioned punch cards. In either case, the advantages add up quickly.
Boost your revenue and cash flow
Obviously, your establishment can’t survive without a regular influx of cash. By enhancing the customer experience and encouraging more frequent visits, a good loyalty program can furnish you with a predictable source of funds that you can leverage to improve your products, hire more staff, make physical improvements or initiate a new marketing campaign.
Set the stage for longevity
Current profits are great, but loyalty programs also help you to pave the way for future infusions of cash as well. That’s because with promotions such as those you can get through North, you can also give your customers the opportunity to purchase gift cards that bring new visitors and their families into your store.
Ease of use
When you bring a loyalty program into your restaurant business model, you don’t need to modify your entire system. In fact, the software provided by companies like North works seamlessly with most of the currently available credit card terminals, including contactless options.
Rewards flexibility
Depending on what you and your guests want and the type of restaurant you run, you might want to offer different types of incentives to your best customers.
Modern loyalty program software allows for a high degree of flexibility that enables you to create various reward tiers and point levels.
Integration with your POS solution
As you probably already know, your point of sale system is packed with numerous capabilities that assist you in optimizing virtually every function of your business. Along with inventory and employee management tools, one of the most important are the system’s reporting features.
When you link them with your loyalty program, you can create documents allowing you to track trends and individual buying histories. Armed with this data, you will be able to chart an accurate course for your restaurant’s future growth and product offerings.
Keep payment transaction security as a top priority
Keeping patron data safe from data breach should be a focus throughout your operations for all customers, but never is it more important than for your most frequent diners.
Along with loyalty program capabilities, companies such as North provide you with a fortress of security features that enable you to screen for fraud, verify identity and safeguard your systems from cyber intrusion.
When information is shielded, incidences of crime are reduced and customers are happier, resulting in fewer of the customer-initiated credit card funds reversals known as chargebacks.
Multi-location capabilities
Do you have several restaurants in your brand chain? Regardless of your company’s size and reach, your loyalty program can grow right along with you at each of your stores.
As a result, customers receive a consistently positive loyalty experience regardless of which of your physical restaurants they visit.
Bring in new guests
With some creative signage and a small investment, your loyalty program can even be used to attract brand new customers. Simply woo them with a free appetizer or dessert just for walking in the door and signing up for your loyalty program.
Then use the data they have provided to find out their preferences so that you can offer them their favorite without even needing to ask.
There are several popular types of loyalty programs. You might initiate a tiered setup that allows guests to unlock various benefit levels depending on how much they spend. Alternatively, you could allow patrons to earn points based on their spending that can be redeemed for prizes or discounts.
In a subscription-based configuration, you give perks to those who pay a regular upfront membership fee. Finally, some programs incentivize people every time they visit the eatery regardless of the amount they spend.
Whichever type you choose, loyalty programs can help to move your establishment forward. In one of the most highly competitive industries on the planet, incorporating this strategy into your business model might just provide the extra push you need to boost your revenue, please your customers and leave competitors in the dust.
