Restaurant Promotions: Are You Just Jumping on the Same Customer Loyalty Bandwagon?
Is Your Restaurant Willing to Stand Out From Your Competition When It Comes To Customer Loyalty Programs?
I love to eat pizza- and in the past few weeks in my hometown of Austin, Texas, I have eaten at three different pizzerias–all doing the same loyalty promotion.
You hold a generic plastic customer loyalty card up to POS terminal and it reads the UPC code– and I get a point towards a free pizza.
I was so perplexed that I even asked one manager if I can use the card from one of the other pizzerias to keep accumulating points.
How effective is that? Not very.
Your customer loyalty program should be unique.
It does not need to be high tech.
After all, the goal of your customer loyalty program is to increase loyalty or increase per ticket sales–not to dazzle the customer with all types of bells and whistles.
Don’t lose focus of your objectives when creating a customer loyalty program.
If there is a learning curve to use the system, participation will drop.
If you are trying to impress me with your tech savviness- forget about it. You are a pizzeria or sub sandwich shop, for Pete’s sake!! I’m not expecting fancy wizardry from you.
If I was shopping for a new smartphone, then I’d expect the latest in technology.
If your game pieces or customer loyalty cards are not personalized–big mistake.
How will I know that my scan card is for your shop– and how is that lack of advertising space reinforcing your brand? It is not.
Keep your program fresh.
Keep it exciting.
Switch things out from time to time.
Give away a free 5-song music download card one time, and a free imprinted special water bottle another time.
Have these promotional items capture the essence of your shop.
Do not be a cookie cutter.
Customers aren’t coming into your restaurant because you are just another sandwich shop or pizzeria.
Brand your customer loyalty promotion.
Name your customer loyalty promotion.
And keep it simple!
