As mentioned in the previous blog, as a head chef you have a lot of responsibilities to ensure that your restaurant/ café/ grab and go eatery operates smoothly. Okay, so you offer great food and a great service but so do a lot of other food companies out there, one of the best ways you can create a profitable business is by generating repeat custom, by making sure you give your customers a reason to return. At Personnel Solutions Chef Recruitment, we recognise how much you have on your plate, quite literally, so we thought we would give you some top tips to help you secure returning business.
Offer a loyalty card
This isn’t ground breaking news here; in fact, many businesses have been doing this for years. Each time a customer buys a hot drink or purchases a meal deal (you decide whatever it might be) stamp a loyalty card. When they have purchased a certain number of items, as a thank you for their loyal custom you can offer them something free in return. It doesn’t have to be anything spectacular, you will be surprised at how many people are interested in a free coffee!
Offer a membership
This is something that can also help you secure returning custom. Why not offer members a specific discount? Make your members feel that they are important to you with an exclusive offer if they “join your club”. This could be a 10% discount that they receive every time they purchase from you. When you get people to join your membership, with their permission you can then use their email address for example and market to them every week.
Create a Deal Of The Week
Keep things exciting, remember you need to make your business stand out from the others. If for example you work at a lunch place, why not offer a different meal deal each week? One week you could offer a premium drink with their meal deal and another week you could provide two snacks rather than one.
Run a competition
People love to feel like they are involved. Getting people to engage with your business is a great way to get repeat custom. You could run a competition whereby people have to suggest new sandwich filling/s, the person who suggests the best sandwich filling could win lunch for a week.
Utilise social media
There is so much digital opportunity available to increase your brand exposure. Encourage your customers to tag your business in their social media posts. The more brand awareness you create the more familiar people become with your brand and the more likely they will be to visit/ return to your food place.
Of course, there are plenty of other things you can do to ensure your customers keep coming back but these are a great couple of suggestions to get you started! Good luck.
