Why Restaurant Loyalty Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

If we were to describe the typical restaurant loyalty program, it would look something like this: A diner walks into a restaurant, shows their loyalty card, and if their total spend surpasses, say $100, they get a discount or freebie.

Sound familiar?

While rewarding guest loyalty is a good thing, a transactional, one-size-fits-all approach fits quick service restaurants much better than full-service restaurants.  

In a recent survey, 74% of operators ranked “creating memorable moments of surprise in-service” as one of the three most important factors for getting a guest to come back. And yet, many restaurant operators still continue to leverage low-touch transactional measures to build their restaurant loyalty programs — like allowing the number of times a guest visits to determine their access to perks and rewards.

It’s time we stop making loyalty transactional.

What if, instead, we thought of those traditional data points as indicators of loyalty rather than the result of said loyalty? Rather than focusing on the guests who prove their loyalty to you, use these indicators to start cultivating relationships with these guests, proving your loyalty.

Below, we’ll show you how to build and scale an individualized loyalty system that wows guests and keeps them coming back.

Many restaurants assume that transactional rewards like discounts and freebies are the key to winning guest loyalty, when in fact, the opposite is true: big or small personal moments you can repeat over time can mean more to a guest and do more for driving repeat business.

Personalization — which is actually just giving someone your time and attention — exists on a spectrum. It’s important to make guests feel special and seen. You can’t barter or sell time and attention, but these efforts are often the most impactful for driving loyalty.

Start off with small things you can implement quickly using just a few data points, like:

Figure out what kinds of personalization elements work for you and your business. Unlike transactional rewards, these special moments are not one-size-fits-all. To deliver these, you need to understand your guests. 

Creating personal experiences at scale can seem impossible. It’s an especially tough task for your servers, who are the front-line ambassadors of customer engagement.

Devise personal moments for each guest by listening and acting — your best employees do this instinctively, like silently delivering a free glass of champagne after overhearing guests’ cheers to 20 years of marriage. But on busy nights, this commitment to delightful customer experience can slip. You can curate special moments consistently if you let technology aid in the discovery. 

Here’s an example:

Mjølner, a luxury Viking- and Norse-inspired restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, uses SevenRooms’ reservation and customer relationship management (CRM) platform to collect data and manage their online bookings. 

Tipped off by the mention of their anniversary in the reservation notes, the team at Mjølner, surprised a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary on site with a hand-written card along with a set of gifted drinking horns to toast the special occasion.

“This thoughtful act has proven to me that not all restaurants ignore the reservation notes section. And because of this experience, I have recommended it to many friends and look forward to dining there again,” the guest shared with SevenRooms. 

This level of thought and personalization connected the guests to Mjølner with a memory they’ll enjoy forever. It also earned the restaurant referrals and repeat business.  

With key information at your fingertips, your team can surprise and delight guests. This is how you go above and beyond — ultimately turning a repeat guest into a “VIP” or “Regular” faster. 

Amassing a segment of loyal customers takes time, but integrating technology into your restaurant operations can help you learn what drives loyalty in real time. A robust reservation system and CRM can capture guest data you can share with staff across all touchpoints to create personalized experiences in service and marketing. 

Using technology, like a restaurant CRM, the next step is finding a segment of guests and figuring out what will get them to return. By segmenting, you’ll amass a shortlist of loyalty-generating gestures your staff can pull off at a moment’s notice and without a lot of effort.

Here’s a blueprint you can follow to build scalable customer loyalty programs:

To identify who you want to engage, you must first define your indicators of loyalty. Then, nurture the relationship with thoughtful outreach. 

We know it’s easier to monetize an existing customer base by bringing them back than it is to acquire a new diner. Cheaper, too.

We also know how important segmentation is for understanding guest behavior, targeting outreach, and, most importantly, generating loyalty. 

When addressing customer retention, operators often focus on their most active audience: the loyalty members, raving fans and high rollers. But one could argue that your “VIPs” and

Big Spenders” are already loyal. These guests are great for revenue, but if you only focus on the guests you’ve already won, you’ll miss out on another key segment.

To identify potential guests who can become repeat customers, start with your Champion diners — or, as SevenRooms defines them, guests who are on the path to becoming loyal. 

“Champion” diners are guests who are showing signs of becoming loyal, as indicated by the number of visits, spending amounts or feedback given, for example. Champion diners are guests with potential. 

Win them over, and they’ll promote your business in more ways than your best digital marketer ever could. 

Using SevenRooms integrated CRM and marketing solutions, Mina Group added 1 million guest profiles to their guest database in four years.

Leveraging segmentation, they mark any guests who have dined with them three times in two months as potential loyalty diners, or Champions, and those who visit 20+ times in the same period as “Platinum VIPs.” 

Strategically segmenting their client database paved the way for truly personalized service as well as hyper-targeted marketing campaigns, which generated an additional $428,000 of on- and off-premise revenue in 2021 alone.