[.is--yellow-highlight]20% of your best customers can generate up to 80% of your sales![.is--yellow-highlight] Loyal customers structure your income: more and more restaurants have understood this and are setting up innovative loyalty programs, more effective than printed loyalty cards.
Restaurant loyalty card or online program? We take stock: tips, trends, examples... Find out how to offer an innovative loyalty program in your restaurant!
The number of restaurants on offer in city centers has never been so high... And for restaurateurs, this increased competition means greater volatility. In this context, keeping customers coming back is vital for any restaurant!
For you, a loyalty program has nothing but advantages: it helps generate traffic in your restaurant. Loyal customers tend to spend more, which means you can significantly boost your sales.
Every euro invested in a loyalty program pays off tenfold! Loyal customers don't just keep coming back: they also spread the word, talking about you and one day becoming your ambassadors.
Another advantage: an innovative loyalty program lets you collect customer data. This database is a treasure trove for restaurateurs: it's a powerful marketing lever you can activate with SMS marketing, personalized rewards and data-driven customer relations.
Last but not least, customer loyalty reinforces independence from reservation and delivery platforms. It makes restaurateurs more resilient in the face of high commissions.
The stamp card is still suitable for some convenience stores. However, in the restaurant and catering sector, foodtechs have given it a bad name! The reason: it's impractical, not very eco-friendly and, above all, offers no scope for personalization.
Stamp cards force you to offer the same reward to everyone. In the age of personalization, you risk satisfying almost no one.
Worse still, restaurant loyalty cards have blind spots. They offer you no information on customer habits and preferences. They only count the number of checkouts, not the dishes selected on your card.
They are passed from hand to hand, which can distract from their primary purpose: to build customer loyalty. 61.7% of customers have already shared a stamp card with someone close to them.
Conversely, digitization allows you to inject data into your loyalty program. This smart data offers opportunities to automate and take loyalty to the next level!
An innovative loyalty program for restaurants is connected to a customer database. Each time the virtual loyalty card is used, data is recorded in a customer profile. You effortlessly generate a database all your own, with user consent and RGPD compliance.
This customer database provides you with contact details for each customer. This telephone number is used to identify the customer at the checkout and to collect points.
Credit can be automated if you use SumUp and its automatic Hey Pongo integration.The process is super-light for the customer, offering a simple, stress-free experience. This ease of management saves you and your teams precious time.
The database also records birthday, habits, number of visits, number of points and interactions. You can enrich it with information of your choice using the survey function: every 3 visits, for example, you can add a question about your favorite ice cream flavor (or other!).
When it comes to loyalty programs, whether in restaurants or stores,enrolment is crucial. Lightweight and fun, that's what's needed to sign up as many customers as possible. Not everyone wants to spell out their name and address in front of a line of waiting customers. But just 06 is enough to enroll a customer in your loyalty program.
Playful enrolment, as shown above, can enrol between 30% and 70% of the visitor flow (averages observed among Hey Pongo customers). This is the strength of the loyalty program: it reaches a maximum number of people thanks to simple enrolment and immediate rewards.
2/3 of restaurant loyalty program members want a reward they can access immediately.
A coffee or dessert on the first visit generates the first interaction with the loyalty program. It's just as important as enrolment! An active customer from the outset will be much more likely to play the game in the long term.
By accumulating points, customers can access increasingly attractive rewards. An online loyalty program lets you offer your own assortment of rewards. You can offer from 5 to 10, for example, to suit all tastes and profiles. Right up to VIP customers, who can aim for exclusive rewards and benefits.
Your rewards can also reflect the image of your restaurant. For example, a poké restaurant might offer Hawaiian, natural and healthy rewards; a Neapolitan trattoria might play up the volcanic gifts and trip to Naples card!
An innovative loyalty program allows you to multiply the points of contact with a single customer. That way, you're not passively waiting for them to come back!
On the contrary, with the phone number and SMS consent, you can take the lead. Contact your customers occasionally, for promotions, special events (Black Friday or Valentine's Day), to wish them a happy birthday, etc...
The database generated by the loyalty program makes all this possible. SMS campaigns are highly effective: 97% of text messages are opened within 15 minutes!
All types of SMS marketing are possible: the choice is yours. In general, our customers opt for two types of mass mailing:
Whichever method you choose, the return on investment is enormous! Coupled with loyalty and enriched customer data, SMS generates around €30 in sales for every euro invested.
Deploy my loyalty program with Hey Pongo
With Hey Pongo, deploying an innovative restaurant loyalty program is super easy.
All you have to do is register: once your customer base is ready, you can deploy our connected tablet near high-traffic or waiting areas (tables, counters, checkouts, order terminals, etc.). It's on the tablet that customers register, view their points and convert them into rewards.
Enrolment is ultra-fast, which is what makes it so effective. All the customer has to do is leave their 06 and consent to receive communications. You can then set up additional questions, but not necessarily on the first visit. It's up to you to decide after how many visits you're going to collect first name, email, birthday, gender, preferences...
All you have to do is effortlessly convert your customer flow. Customers enroll themselves on the tablet. Setting up the restaurant loyalty program is easy, via the dashboard, or with the help of your Hey Pongo loyalty expert.
You'll be able to consult statistics on rewards, footfall, the number of customers packed, individual profiles... Just like a small restaurant CRM!
And from the same dashboard, you can boost loyalty with SMS campaigns. Better than a restaurant loyalty card, it's a real marketing boost for your brand!
Every 15 seconds, a customer joins a Hey Pongo loyalty program in France!
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Offer [.is--yellow-highlight]the most innovative loyalty program[.is--yellow-highlight] with Hey Pongo :
*Most of the statistics on this page are taken from the 12th Loyalty Barometer.
