Do you have a finger on the pulse of your customers’ wants and needs, or are you just guessing in the dark?

As a restaurant owner or operator, you know that understanding your customers is crucial to providing them with a great dining experience and building customer loyalty. A Customer Data Platform (CDP) can help you do just that. It offers a comprehensive solution for collecting, storing and managing customer data from a wide range of sources and systems, which allows you to have a complete view of the customer journey and understand your customers better.

A CDP also provides advanced tools and capabilities for data analysis, personalization, and segmentation, which can help you create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized recommendations, and customized experiences for your customers. This can increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, leading to repeat business and higher revenue.

Additionally, CDPs can help increase your restaurant's efficiency by automating many of the tasks involved in managing customer data, freeing up your staff to focus on other important tasks such as creating marketing campaigns or improving the dining experience for customers.

Overall, a CDP is an essential tool for any restaurant that wants to understand its customers better and create personalized experiences for them, which is key to driving higher revenue.

What is a customer data platform (CDP)?

A CDP is a software system that collects, stores, and manages customer data from various sources and systems. It provides a central location for storing customer data and enables businesses to analyze and understand their customers better.

It allows businesses to have a complete view of the customer journey, including all interactions and transactions with the business. This helps businesses understand customer preferences and behaviors, and enables them to create personalized experiences for their customers.

Typically, a CDP includes tools and capabilities for data management, including cleaning, enriching, and deduplicating data. It can also integrate with other systems and platforms, such as CRMs, marketing automation platforms, and analytics tools, to provide a more comprehensive view of the customer.

In addition to data management and integration, a CDP can provide advanced tools and capabilities for data analysis, personalization, and segmentation. These tools and capabilities can help businesses create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized recommendations, and customized experiences for their customers, which can improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Why are customer data platforms a popular topic in the restaurant industry right now?

CDPs are all the rage right now because they provide a comprehensive and advanced solution for collecting, storing, and managing customer data from a wide range of sources and systems. This allows you to have a complete view of the customer journey and understand your customers better, which is crucial for creating personalized experiences for them.

In today's competitive and fast-paced restaurant industry, it is increasingly important for you to be able to understand and engage with your customers in a personalized and effective way. A CDP can help you do this by providing tools and capabilities for data analysis, personalization, and segmentation, which can help you create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized recommendations, and customized experiences for your customers.

Additionally, the rise of technology and digital channels has made it easier for you to collect and store customer data, making CDPs a more practical and feasible solution for managing and analyzing this data.

CDP vs. CRM, what’s the difference?

A CDP and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system are both designed to help businesses manage and analyze customer data, but they have some key differences.

One main difference is the scope of data management. A CDP is designed specifically to collect, store, and manage customer data from a wide range of sources and systems, including online and offline interactions, transactions, and social media. A CRM, on the other hand, is primarily focused on managing and analyzing customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.

Another difference is the level of data integration. A CDP can integrate with a wide range of systems and platforms, including CRMs, marketing automation platforms, and analytics tools, to provide a more comprehensive view of the customer. A CRM, on the other hand, may not integrate as seamlessly with other systems and platforms, and may not provide as comprehensive a view of the customer journey.

A CDP also typically provides more advanced tools and capabilities for data analysis, personalization, and segmentation, which can help businesses create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized recommendations, and customized experiences for their customers. A CRM may not offer these advanced tools and capabilities to the same extent.

Overall, while both CDPs and CRMs can be useful for managing and analyzing customer data, CDPs offer a more comprehensive and advanced solution for collecting, storing and managing customer data from a wide range of sources and systems.

What are the main features of CDP?

While a CDP boasts a wide range of features, the main ones include:

Data collection: A CDP collects customer data from a variety of sources, including online and offline interactions, transactions, and social media. This data is then stored in a central location for easy access and analysis.
Data management: Manage your customer data by organizing it, cleaning it, enriching it, and deduplicating it. This helps ensure that you have accurate and up-to-date information about your customers.
Data integration: Integrate with other systems and platforms, such as your CRM, marketing automation, and analytics tools. This allows you to access and use customer data across your entire organization.
Data analysis: Provide tools and capabilities for analyzing customer data and extracting insights. This can help you understand your customers better and make informed decisions about how to engage with them.
Personalization: Create personalized experiences for your customers based on their data and behaviors. This will help increase customer loyalty, satisfaction and ultimately, revenue.
Segmentation: Segment your customers into groups based on shared characteristics and behaviors. From here, you can create targeted marketing campaigns and personalized experiences for each segment.
Data security: Lastly, a CDP takes data security seriously and typically includes measures such as encryption, access controls, and privacy controls to protect your customer data.

Plenty of CDP benefits to choose from

You might be wondering, “do all these features really do much for me?”

Yes, they do.

You need a platform that enables you to collect, analyze and use your customers’ data more intelligently and moreover, deliver higher revenue. Looking at the benefits, there are many, including:

Data collection: With a CDP you can gather a wide range of data about your customers, including their interactions with your restaurant, their preferences, and their behaviors. This can help you understand your customers better and create personalized experiences for them, which can drive higher revenue. For example, if you know that a customer prefers a particular type of dish, you can recommend it to them the next time they visit your restaurant, increasing the likelihood that they will order it.

Data management: Maintaining accurate and up-to-date customer data is critical, especially when it comes to making better decisions about how to engage with your customers. An example of ths is if you know that a customer has a birthday coming up, you can send them a personalized promotion or offer to encourage them to stop in your restaurant and celebrate their special day.

Data integration: This feature allows you to access and use customer data from various sources and systems across your organization, which can help you create more seamless and personalized experiences for your customers. For example, if you know that a customer has ordered takeout from your restaurant multiple times, you can use this information to send them a promotion for delivery the next time they place an order, increasing the likelihood that they will choose your restaurant over competitors.

Data analysis: Extract insights from customer data and understand your customers better, which can help you make informed decisions about how to engage with them. For example, if you know that a certain type of dish is particularly popular with a certain segment of your customers, you can feature it prominently on your menu or in your marketing campaigns.

Personalization: Create customized experiences for your customers based on their data and behaviors, which can increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. For example, if you know that a customer has a dietary restriction, you can recommend dishes that are suitable for them; driving more sales.

Source: McKinsey Personalization Study 2021-22

Segmentation: Divide your customers into groups based on shared characteristics and behaviors, helping you create targeted marketing campaigns and personalized experiences. For example, if you know that a certain segment of your customers tends to visit your restaurant during happy hour, you can send them promotions or offers specifically for this time period, increasing the likelihood that they will visit and order from your menu.

Data security: Protect and secure your customers’ data, helping build trust and confidence with your guests. If you have strong data security measures in place, your customers may be more likely to provide you with personal information, such as their email addresses, which you can use to send them personalized promotions and offers.

How can a CDP help increase your restaurant’s revenue?

As a restaurant owner, you're always looking for ways to increase revenue and improve the overall efficiency of your business. With a CDP, you can better understand your customers, which can in turn help you increase sales and improve the overall customer experience.

By centralizing customer data from various sources and using advanced analytics, a CDP can give you a more complete view of who your customers are and what they're looking for. This knowledge can then be used to create targeted marketing campaigns, optimize your menu, and even improve your restaurant's layout to better meet customer needs. With a CDP in place, you'll be able to make data-driven decisions that can have a real impact on your bottom line.

Based on our experience with customers, here are key areas in how a CDP can help your brand increase revenue:

Personalization: Create personalized experiences for your customers based on their data and behaviors. This can increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, leading to repeat business and higher revenue. For example, if a CDP shows that a customer has a dietary restriction, you can recommend dishes that are suitable for them, increasing the likelihood of purchases.
Targeted marketing: Construct targeted marketing campaigns based your customers’ data and behaviors, leading to better conversions and more keesh in your pocket. One example is if a CDP shows that a particular type of dish is popular with a certain segment of your customers, you can feature it prominently in marketing campaigns, further encouraging them to take action with your brand.
Increased efficiency: Automate many of the tasks involved in managing customer data, freeing up your staff to focus on other important tasks, and helping improve your restaurant's efficiency and productivity, leading to cost savings and higher margins.
Better decision-making: Get insights into customer data and behaviors, which can help you make better-informed decisions about how to engage with your customers and improve their dining experience.

The alternatives to a CDP & why they fall short

When it comes to managing customer data, the alternatives to a CDP have their own specific advantages, but they also fall short in some areas when compared to a CDP.

For example, CRM systems are great for managing customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, but they may not be designed specifically for customer data management and analysis. They may also not integrate with a wide range of sources and systems and may not provide advanced tools and capabilities for data analysis and personalization.

Marketing automation platforms are good for automating and optimizing marketing campaigns and processes, but they may not provide a complete view of the customer journey. They may also not be able to collect and manage data from all customer touchpoints.

Data management platforms (DMPs) are a suitable solution for collecting and managing data from various sources, including websites, mobile apps, and ad networks, but like CRM systems, they may not be designed specifically for customer data management and analysis, in turn, falling short in data analysis and personalization.

On the other hand, data lakes and data warehouses are great for storing and processing large amounts of structured and unstructured data, but they may require a high level of technical expertise to set up and maintain.

So, while each of these alternatives has its own advantages when compared to a CDP, they fall short in providing a comprehensive solution for collecting, storing, and managing customer data from a wide range of sources and systems, and providing advanced tools and capabilities for data analysis, personalization, and segmentation.

Additionally, CDPs offer advanced tools and capabilities such as data cleaning, enriching, and deduplication, personalized recommendations and targeted marketing campaigns all of which can drive revenue by increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Before & after using a CDP

One before and after comparison that could underline the benefits of a CDP is the ability to have a complete view of the customer journey versus a fragmented view.

Before implementing a CDP, you may have a fragmented view of the customer journey, with data scattered across various systems and platforms. Not only does this make it difficult to understand customer preferences and behaviors, and to create personalized experiences for them, but you are wasting time with your personnel having to constantly extract data from various sources and bringing it all together. Not to mention, then trying to understand all the information.

After implementing a CDP, you can have a complete view of the customer journey, with all customer data collected and stored in a central location. This allows you to understand your customers faster, better and curate dining experiences for each guest.

In conclusion

A CDP is essential to increasing your restaurant’s revenue because it enables you to collect, store, and manage customer data from a wide range of sources and systems. This allows you to have an end to end view of the customer journey and understand your guests on an intimate level, which is crucial for creating personalized experiences for them.

With the use of a CDP, you can begin to prioritize creating personalized dining experiences that are proven to increase a brand’s revenue, by up to 40% or more in some cases, and produce more brand champions that will only add more fuel to the growth of your restaurant(s).