5 Proven Strategies To Enhance Customer Loyalty
Increasing customer loyalty should be a top priority for any company looking to achieve rapid growth. Customers who have already decided to work with or buy from you are far more likely to purchase from you again than a cold prospect.
Taking the necessary steps to not only increase but also facilitate customer loyalty should be incorporated into every company’s food ordering operations.
After all, who doesn’t appreciate a customer who is committed to their company? A customer who is willing to recommend your services to others. Alternatively, a customer who refers others. That’s a customer worth putting forth the effort for.
Restaurants with a steady stream of patrons makes it appear easy. Even on weeknights, regulars keep coming back. The economy is on the rise. The averages of the checks are extremely high. Don’t be fooled, though: customer loyalty is earned, not given. Behind the scenes, successful restaurants are hard at work, employing strategies that will help them increase customer loyalty.
Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to retain loyal customers, which can have a negative impact on their return on investment. Since 2013, the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) has increased by nearly 50%. The cost of acquiring a new customer is typically much higher than the cost of keeping an existing one, demonstrating the importance of repeat customers.
Here’s a quick overview of what customer loyalty entails, why it matters, and how to build and maintain it.
1. Use Reciprocity Method
The Reciprocity Principle, coined by Dr. Robert Cialdini, focuses on the feeling that if someone does something for you, you naturally feel obligated to repay them. We’re not suggesting that you should make your customers feel guilty or obligated to stay with you. Instead, by giving them something that makes them feel gently indebted to you, they will naturally want to return the favour. This could be as simple as providing additional information for free (such as a detailed and valuable blog on your website), going the extra mile to assist them if they get stuck, offering free advice, or simply making them feel good. Restaurants can use this method too by offering customers discounts, special offers or even free desert or drink and ask them if they sign up to their food ordering app, download it, or just register themselves on it. This way, they will be willing to do more for you in return, in comparison if you haven’t anything for them at all. They will become a more loyal customer as a result of the reciprocity principle, which states that they will want to return.
2. Launch a Loyalty Program Cards
If you own a restaurant, one of your primary objectives is to not only maintain but also grow your business. Restaurant loyalty cards are one of the most effective ways to market your business. This is one of the most popular methods of restaurant marketing in the industry, and it is used by both chain and independent restaurants.
A loyalty card has an implied value.
According to the National Restaurant Association, 30 percent of restaurants offered a customer loyalty programme in 2019. According to the same report, loyalty programmes were more popular than two years ago in more than 40% of all restaurant categories (family dining, casual dining, fine dining, quick service, and fast-casual). According to a Loyalogy study, loyalty cards also get customers in the door. Customers would increase their business with a particular restaurant by 35 percent if they had “an appealing loyalty card programme,” and 73 percent of customers would recommend a restaurant to friends if the business had an appealing programme, according to the study, which included 1,100 customers surveyed on restaurant loyalty cards.
3. Get Customer Feedback and Implement Suggestions
It’s simple to get customer feedback; it’s as easy as filling out a quick customer survey. Implementing customer suggestions takes a lot more time and effort, but it’s well worth it. Customer feedback often reveals issues and notes that you may not have considered before. This should not be done blindly and should be used to influence your company’s direction rather than a doctorate. When customers see that their feedback has been read, noted, and acted upon, they feel especially valued. Simple “We listened” pieces of content are the best examples of companies demonstrating that they have acted on feedback. Inform customers that, as a result of the recent survey, the company will implement a, b, and c. Then, most importantly, express gratitude to the customers for their feedback. This process increases the value of customers and increases their loyalty.
4. Invest in Customer Service Tools
You’ll need the tools to make customer service excellence simple in order to achieve it. Waiting for phone calls or emails will not provide a positive customer experience. There are numerous tools available that make providing excellent customer service much easier.
If you’re running a referral programme and want to increase customer loyalty, restaurants need to work on integrated systems to provide a valuable customer service setup. These will enable you to create dedicated customer accounts, run a ticketing system, review customer history, and investigate more detailed metrics, all of which may help you spot opportunities or issues before they arise naturally.
5. Make a communication plan
Customers can use communication roadmaps to see when they can expect to hear from you. These are most crucial during the development and delivery phases. People dislike feeling uncertain about what will happen next, so if companies provide a clear communication calendar, customers will know when to expect an announcement from you.
These roadmaps also help clients in staying with you throughout their customer journey rather than abandoning it and going elsewhere. You could even take it a step further by tying rewards to specific milestones, such as a one-year anniversary, but make sure you communicate this in advance. Customers will be able to anticipate this happening.
Important Points to Remember
Customer loyalty is a must-have for any company looking to expand; it’s easy to overlook, but building a loyal customer base is the first step toward a larger, happier, and more engaged group of users who will eventually do your marketing for you.
- Do everything you can to make word-of-mouth marketing a success for your company.
- Increased customer loyalty results in more customers being retained and a higher customer lifetime value.
- You can see trends and improvements by tracking customer loyalty metrics.
