In today's competitive restaurant marketplace, it's more important than ever to have a strong customer base. One of the best ways to build a loyal customer base is to turn your casual customers into brand champions.

A brand champion is a customer who is so passionate about your brand that they go out of their way to promote it to others. They may write positive reviews online, share social media posts, or even refer their friends and family to your business. (Personal recommendations like this are very important. A study by Nielsen found that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while only 70% trust advertising.)

Brand champions are incredibly valuable to your restaurant. They can help to increase brand awareness, generate social media buzz, and drive your in-house and online ordering sales.

So, how can you turn your casual customers into brand champions? Here are a few tips:

4 TIPS TO TURN CASUAL CUSTOMERS INTO BRAND CHAMPIONS

1. PROVIDE EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE

This is probably the most important thing you can do to turn your customers into brand champions. When customers have a positive experience with your restaurant, they're more likely to become loyal customers. This applies not only to your in-house customer service but also to people's customer service experience with your restaurant online.

2. CREATE A POSITIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

This goes beyond just providing excellent customer service. It also means creating a positive dining experience for your customers. This includes everything from how easy it is to find your hours and menu online, how your website looks, and how easy it is to navigate and order online to the way your employees interact with customers while they are dining at your restaurant.

“Customers want to be heard,” states Melissa Dimmitt, Menufy by HungerRush’s very own marketing guru. She explains: ”Restaurant owners should respond to both positive and negative reviews because it not only helps with brand reputation, but customers also take into account the effort made to connect with them, whether their experience was good or bad.”

One way to help prevent negative reviews is by offering some type of customer feedback survey. We include a survey campaign in our HungerRush 360 Marketing service, which we will go over more later. Melissa says, “A customer survey will take the guesswork out of identifying what is working and what isn't, and it gives customers a platform to share their feedback.”

3. OFFER INCENTIVES

One way to encourage customers to keep coming back is to offer them incentives. Incentives can take many forms, such as discounts, coupons, and loyalty programs. Restaurants will typically offer incentives to attract new customers. However, incentives are also incredibly effective when encouraging repeat business and rewarding loyal customers.

Eze Redwood, the owner of Wings Cafe in Kansas City, MO, was a guest speaker during our most recent webinar and stressed the importance of offering incentives to his loyal customers: “You can reward someone for being a part of your community. That’s a lot more meaningful for people. It helps turn customers into brand champions.” 

Customers are loving loyalty programs as well. HungerRush surveyed 1,000 Americans to find out how loyalty programs influence their ordering behavior and included their findings in this article. Two important stats they revealed are that 55% of the consumers surveyed visit a restaurant at least twice per month to earn rewards, and 61% were comfortable giving their personal information out for more targeted and individualized offers. 

4. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS 

The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. Make an effort to get to know them on a personal level. This will help you build relationships with them, and it will make them more likely to become brand champions.

You can do this the old-fashioned way by spending time in the restaurant chatting with customers or online, checking in on your social media platforms, and engaging with people there. Customers crave a sense of community, so more time and effort spent on that alone can cultivate brand champions for your restaurant.

MENUFY BY HUNGERRUSH TOOLS

If you’re not sure where to start, we have some tools that can help!

Free Email Marketing Tool

The free email marketing tool located in your restaurant’s Menufy Manager account allows restaurant owners to create and schedule up to two free email blasts each calendar month. The email blast will go out to all the customers who have ordered from your Menufy online order site and have agreed to receive marketing from your restaurant.

This is a great way to send announcements to your customers or let them know about specials or events going on at the restaurant. It’s also a tool you can use to send out additional promotional emails. If you’re not sure how to set up an email campaign, follow this step-by-step guide.

Coupons, Quick Deals, Tasty Rewards

You can manage your Coupons, Quick Deals, and Tasty Rewards from your Menufy Manager account. You’ll be able to create simple, straightforward percentage- and dollar-off coupons with a few customization options, including marketing opt-in requirements and inclusions and exclusions.

Quick Deals are geared toward offering customers a free item if their order subtotal reaches the minimum amount required. If you have a popular high-profit item such as breadsticks, that would be a great Quick Deal to offer.

Tasty Rewards is our loyalty program that is set up as an accumulation-type reward system. It's a great way to encourage customers to order online again because every dollar spent earns a reward percentage that can be redeemed for future purchases.

HungerRush 360 Marketing + Customer Feedback Surveys

If you’re looking to elevate your efforts and invest in marketing, we highly recommend our HungerRush 360 Marketing + Customer Feedback Surveys. For $99 a month, we will send automated and targeted marketing campaigns to your customers based on their order behavior.

We will also send a customer feedback survey 90 minutes after your customer orders online. The survey responses are sent directly to you and upper management so you can be notified of the feedback as soon as it’s sent. 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

What are you doing to turn your casual customers into brand champions? The tips we’ve listed above can take some time and dedication, but your efforts will not go unnoticed by your customers.

Hungry for more tips to improve. your restaurant? Chat with Menufy’s restaurant success team!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NIKKI FINLEY, SR. DIGITAL MARKETING SPECIALIST

Nikki got her start in the restaurant industry when she was 15. She also spent some time working at tech startups in Chicago. Utilizing her many years of experience in the restaurant and tech space, she’s spent the last 5 years assisting Menufy clients with their premium marketing services.