The average smartphone user spends more than four hours a day on their device, with an array of opportunities available at every swipe. While endless options are a benefit to consumers, they represent a challenge for restaurant brands: how to increase customer loyalty in a crowded digital market.
Eating is personal. People choose where they want to eat, what they want to eat and who they want to eat with based on a multitude of factors. The restaurant brands that figure it out – the ones who take the inherent personal aspects of dining into account during marketing planning – are the same ones increasing loyalty.
In fact, integrating personalization in online and mobile ordering turns out to be one the biggest drivers of repeat business. Why? Because consumers appreciate it when brands make their lives easier by matching and remembering their ordering habits; when the brand values their time.
To create these personalized experiences, brands must know their customers, and how to interact with them. For example, guests who are often on the go will appreciate one-touch reorder capabilities to minimize the amount of time spent searching the app for their favorite menu items. Instead, it should be easy for them to navigate to the “My Favorites” section and hit “Order Again” on their favorite menu item, complete with all their dish customizations. A recent survey conducted by Tillster found that 55% of consumers would most like to see their past orders saved for re-order when ordering online or via mobile app.
People want to know that the brands they are loyal to know them. And brands can respond by taking personalization further, by utilizing insights gathered through online ordering platforms to send limited time offers (LTOs) that directly correlate to a guest’s current relationship with the brand; different types of guests getting different types of orders, all in the name of driving incremental visits. A frequent customer could be sent an offer with a free-add on to their regular order, like a newly released dessert or never-tried appetizer item. For an infrequent guest, the LTO may be focused on bringing the customer back into the store a bit more frequently than anticipated, by offering them a discount good for the next seven days.
We find that utilizing data to influence the customer experience results in more beneficial experiences for all parties involved. For a restaurant brand, these personalized efforts provide great opportunities for cross-sell and upsell, as well as increased customer loyalty and visits. At the same time, the customer is getting an easy experience that responds to their individual relationship with the brand, making the ordering process almost conversational in nature as the customer shares their preferences and the brand responds with corresponding offers and messages.
To learn more about utilizing insights to improve customer experience, visit tillster.com/data-science. To learn more about building customer loyalty in the digital era, check out Tillster CMO Hope Neiman’s recent article in QSR Magazine.
