Blog Post
Restaurants! Look Here!
noreply • Jul 20, 2020
Hungry for More.
Your customers are hungry. For more dining options. For information on your sanitizing efforts. And for easy access to your menu.
A recent study by Florida International University's
Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management has identified a couple of trends that Restaurant owners will find interesting. Some are a bit obvious and others will require a bit of creative thinking!
- Transparency and Communication
- Make it clear that you are following new protocols for Restaurants. Make your cleaning practices visible. Maybe have staff disinfecting quickly after diners have departed. Wear masks properly.
- Innovation and Creativity
- Restaurants all over are adapting to our changing environment and consumers are reacting well. Consider "Family Meal" bundles that can be reheated and/or frozen. Offer Groceries and recipes for your most popular offerings.
- Contactless Technology and Virtual Presence
- Consider implementing Google Pay and other services to help make your interactions contactless. Maybe even a Virtual Tip Jar on your website where customers can help out your staff.
"To entice customers back to on-premise dining, tailor your approach to each customer segment:
- Loyal guests. Encourage loyal customers to return to on-premise dining by sending them personalized messages with critical information: when your restaurants will be open and why they can be confident that it’s safe to come in.
- Customers who spent their money elsewhere. Some fraction of customers may have shifted their spending entirely to your competitors during the pandemic—or made all their meals at home. Effective marketing levers for this segment could include loyalty-driven price promotions and just-in-time offers featuring the most popular items and personalized favorites.
- People who became first-time customers during the crisis. To retain these customers, look to initiate them into your loyalty program with a special offer. Also, make sure your digital presence is consistent across platforms: for example, the menu featured on your own app should match the menu on any food-delivery aggregators that these customers may have used during the shelter-in-place period, and should highlight the same family meals they ordered during that time.
- Potential customers. In a new dining landscape, some customers who previously patronized other restaurants will be “up for grabs.” It’s an ideal time to reevaluate your spending mix with a marketing-return-on-investment (MROI) simulator, which helps determine how to invest marketing dollars across email, social media, search, apps, local mass media, and other channels."
Courtesy of McKinsey.
Keep your head up and your creative juices flowing. Every change comes with new opportunities and we will get through this awfulness. And, be better for it.
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Five in a series.
This post is the fourth in a series where I want to share some of the things I have learned over the course of my career. It has been varied in terms of industry and the customers served and has given me many valuable lessons along the way. I hope to benefit my clients with advice, ideas and cautions as a way of contributing to my local community. Next up was a sink or swim introduction to the early years of the internet. My love of travel, and startups, lead me to a new subsidiary of a large travel wholesale group in Ft. Lauderdale. Certified Vacations offered wholesale travel packages in addition to running Continental Airlines Vacations and (CAV) Delta Airlines Vacations (DAV). I want to work for New River Technologies (NRT) which was the internet arm for Certified. Fast and furious, my experience with NRT was exhilarating! I managed a large staff of web designers and we crafted dynamic websites for CAV, DAV and countless others. Understanding client needs and goals and translating them into the digital environment was a challenge in this new form of communication. Key was understanding how people wanted to learn about and book travel. Early on we developed relationships with Microsoft, Priceline, Expedia and other emerging online travel sellers and, looking back, the experience was absolutely thrilling. To say that the pace was fast is an understatement! I was hooked. Somehow, I had to figure out how to leverage my marketing, advertising and communications background into a dream job. A short stop with Sunglass Hut, before they were bought by Luxottica, honed my skills for effective communications with retail customers. We launched a new, and very innovative, website for sunglass sales that, like other startups, was full of challenges in every department. We were a small group and gathered in a small area, we all learned a lot about each area of the business. The programming side of websites has evolved so far from some of the early days I am grateful have been witness to the genesis of what is now a highly technical process. 2000 was a big year and was highlighted by a move to Small Business Ownership. Stay tuned!
