For several years now, foodtech players have been using customer data to help restaurants build up a core of regulars. Loyalty, quality of welcome, independence from platforms: we tell you why it's urgent to take an interest in customer data as an independent restaurateur!
What is customer data in the restaurant business? It's all the information your customers leave in your system at one time or another. It can come from many different sources ! Home orders, online table reservations, customer files, loyalty programs, data for your newsletter, info on Groupon customers... Every day, important customer data passes through your hands. Here's why it's high time you took an interest.
Today, customer data is essential for most restaurants, even if they don't know it yet. Building up a customer file enables them to enhance their image, build customer loyalty and grow their business, all in the face of ever-increasing competition.
How can we help? Properly used, this data can give new meaning to customer relations. Beyond a certain level of frequentation and/or turnover, it becomes impossible to remember every single customer. Data helps you ensure that customers continue to feel at home in your restaurant. Is the restaurant-going public increasingly connected? So are restaurants, and customer data enables them to take the lead through concrete applications.
Knowing your customers better will enable you to :
- take reservations or orders online ;
- send newsletters ;
- set up a loyalty program ;
- personalize your customerwelcome.
When you work in a restaurant, you really don't have the time to recopy all the customer's information every time they call. Reservation platforms have jumped into the breach, but at the cost of sometimes high commissions. Creating an efficient customer file enables restaurateurs to retrieve data in an instant, and to streamline the booking process, whether by telephone or online.
When you work in a restaurant, you really don't have the time to recopy all the customer's information every time they call. Reservation platforms have jumped into the breach, but at the cost of sometimes high commissions. Some players, however, offer to bring together the various reservation feeds (website, Google, directories, etc.) and free themselves from commissions. The icing on the cake is that all data is stored and classified in a customer file that belongs to the restaurateur. Creating an efficient customer file enables restaurateurs to retrieve data in an instant, and to streamline the booking process, whether by telephone or the Internet.
The data can be used to identify a customer's preferences in advance, and to offer them a differentiated welcome, with little touches to match. Beyond the choice of wine and favorite table, it's above all an excellent way of anticipating special requests : strollers and children, people with reduced mobility, allergies, disliked ingredients, and so on...
Coupled with the right marketing tools, the customer file enables independent restaurateurs to establish a privileged discussion channel with their regulars. You can set up a good old-fashioned newsletter to keep them informed of restaurant news (new menu, terrace opening, etc.) and upcoming events (theme evenings, sports broadcasts...) without spending hours on it, thanks to the right partners.
Even more effective loyalty programs make the most of customer data (with automated actions for busy restaurateurs). Based on SMS and segmentation, they can achieve astonishing results in building customer loyalty through special attentions!
After shaking up the hotel industry, a new situation is also affecting restaurateurs: the arrival of reservation platforms and other home delivery services (Uber Eats, Just-Eat or Deliveroo). This new ecosystem is not exactly to the restaurants' advantage: competition, non-negotiable commissions, prices driven down, ghost restaurants...
To resist this new form of uberization, restaurants have a major ally in customer data. By managing their own customer database, they can no longer depend exclusively on platforms to organize reservations (or home deliveries), communication and loyalty.
Creating a customer file for your restaurant allows you to reappropriate digital technology and retain your freedom in the face of platforms. Be careful, however, to comply with the RGPD! Keeping personal data must be done according to the rules: consent, transparency, measurement... If you'd like to find out more, don't hesitate to contact us and set up a customer file according to the rules.
