Why Your Restaurant Need A Loyalty Program Now

Purchasing a loyalty program is different from buying any other asset for your business as it can completely change the business dynamics. You should treat it as in investment instead on just another purchase. Having a rewards program is absolutely essential for restaurants especially as they have frequently returning customers. Prior to digital solutions, most restaurants focused on producing printed stamp cards which would result in high cost over time, and often time customers would lost it as well. Digitalized mobile punch cards are more personalized, and restaurants even have the ability to push out notification that are more interactive between restaurant and customer.

Let us have a look at the five reasons why your restaurant needs a loyalty program:

1) Simple & Easy

We’ve come a long way since the traditional punch cards are so yesterday. Today, restaurants can set any loyalty campaigns or rewards as they want via a web-based solutions. They can set and reward specific customers for specific purchase behavior.  Once the program is up, all you need to do is sit down and wait for the business to come to you. Restaurant can avoid complicated paperwork, entering information about each and every customer so they will be free up to perform more meaningful and effective task.

2) You Have Nothing To lose

There’s no way that your rewards program could fail after careful planning and execution. Furthermore, if you want to avoid losing money after implementing a rewards program, allow your customers to spend a certain amount of money or time before they can earn any points that can be applied to their account. Example, create a reward program that offers customer free menu item after a number of visits or purchases.

3) Encourage Repeat Diners

What is 80/20 rules? It simply means that 20% of your returning customer contribute at least 80% of sales to your business. Being pampered and rewarded for repeat business will significantly sits high on all customer’s mind. You can expect by providing incentives or deals for loyalty will encourage customer to be back at your doorstep again. According to Author Fred Reichheld, on The Loyalty Effect “…a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25-100% increase in profit for your company.”  Just merely a small increase of retention can have strong results.

4) Attract New Diners

According to the 2014 Bond Brand Loyalty Report,  when customers received relevant communications,  their overall satisfaction with loyalty programs will increase 5x higher. When it comes to message dissemination, loyalty programs can be tailored to focus on specific geographic location and on people demographic. That more personalized information will help turn a one-time customers to a repeat customers.  Especially also if the whole rewards experience are interactive, customers are more likely to spread the words to others.

 

Lastly,

5) Sales Is King

Mobilizing rewards program allow restaurant to remind customers about their great menu and specials.   Often, customers will need to see the name of a restaurant around the time before deciding what to do for dinner, and they will be inspired to dine there. By sending push notifications on promotions, discounts, and special discounts going on that day or week will allow you to tap into their decisive mind. It may sound a little devious, but if you are looking for an increase in sales, simply alerting customers about what is going on that day could be the difference between obtaining that sale or losing it to the burger joint next door.

A restaurant rewards program along with a pleasant atmosphere, awesome food, and splendid service is a value added benefit to your restaurant’s marketing strategy.

WHY SHOULD RETAIL BRANDS CONSIDER CUSTOMER LOYALTY PROGRAMS?

Retailers are directly disrupted by the presence of e-commerce stores, leaving them in a stagnant growth position. More effective e-commerce technologies are sprouting throughout the world catering to millennials who are ever so ready to execute an online purchase. This has resulted in brick and mortar retailer to start cutting marketing cost as a first step but they could never be more wrong.

Customer loyalty programs are time and proven method for retailers to grow and sustain customers and even potential growth in market share. It must be known that customers whom are already committed and loyal to a brand will compulsively continue buying and are a prime market for that brand’s newly launched products.

Although loyalty programs aren’t new anymore, but retail brand owners still fail to recognize the importance on the implementation of such programs into their business. Besides that, owners are not fully aware of the options available out there. Only tinkering with old programs which were effective a decade ago (e.g. Paper stamp card collection). Worse still owners have no effective way of measuring their efforts from the implementations. Observing from a different angle, customer now have higher expectations over how customer loyalty is seen and interpreted by retailer brands.

INCREASING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

The current marketplace no longer hold true to the old patterns of customer behavior, where retail brands must accept and adjust to survive. Loyalty programs will always be needed in the retail industry but they must be easily accessible to anyone of all walks of life. It must also be up to the trend of today’s digital customers. One of the most important measurement of an owner implementing a program is its cost. Loyalty programs don’t come cheap, in some cases, investments in loyalty programs can reach up to 10% of sales. To ensure that retail brand owners do not burn cash on inappropriate programs, let us discuss on some steps on requirements of a customer loyalty program which suits your wallet and business best.

Step 1 – Engagement Customers Experience
Customer experience is now the number one achievement target for all retail brands. An effective program will automatically multiply the growth of good customer experience. Hence, for any brand owners who are interested in trying out a program, the ability of them to measure the effectiveness of customer’s experience would be a good first measurement.

Step 2 – Requirements of Mobile Data
Another primary indication of an effective loyalty program would be it usage of customers mobile data. Gamification of loyalty programs are on the up trend these days, but do remember they do take up a lot of your customers mobile data. That would be a different case if your retail outlet provides free wifi connections.

Step 3 – Customized Engagement Contents
Consistency may be the key in a good loyalty program but creativity and novelty are something which customers will be looking forward to. With the right program, brand owners are able to test and personalize engagement contents in real time, introducing novel contents and also benefit to captivate customers. While at the same time providing detailed measurement of customers analysis identifying contents which are not effective or profitable while filtering out the uninteresting ones.

Surveys have shown that majority of loyalty customer groups expressed that they will do almost anything to earn more reward points in at least one program. Therefore it’s of utmost importance that as a retail brand owner, you understand the requirements and touch points which captivates your customers is key as saving them the most money is not always the case these days. Customers are now looking for personalized engagement and services as it is the in-store experience which they are most looking forward too.

Further studies have also proven that more than 70% of brand loyal customers appreciates  in-store informational contents to surprise deals or rewards, special privileges and time saving opportunities. Loyalty programs which allows brand owners to personalize engagement contents offering frequent surprises will most likely reap the most benefit in sales. This all means that while shopping for a loyalty program, brand owners should look into a program’s flexibility and speed in customizing contents to captivate the ever evolving customers preferences and expectations.

We surely do hope this helps anyone who finds this article useful in your endeavor in brand retailing.

All the best from us from Team Blink