Consumer demand is evolving faster than ever. It’s shockingly easy to get left behind.
I watch too many businesses just chugging along, delivering a customer experience that was perfect for yesterday’s consumer… but doesn’t meet the mark for today.
There was a time when providing great food and great service was enough to keep people coming through your doors again and again. Today, there are simply more boxes to tick.
Here are a few things to think about in 2021 if you want to keep your customers coming back for more.
1. Flexibility: practice some business yoga
Flexibility has always been important for consumers, but modern generations are getting ever more used to getting things how we want, when we want. Adding to that, the pandemic has turbocharged the digitisation of services, meaning consumers have gotten used to doing more and more from the comfort of their sofas (in their pyjamas… at 3 in the afternoon).
Customers want to be served quickly and efficiently, wherever they are. And however much they adore your food, if you don’t offer their preferred way of accessing it, they may drift towards your competition.
Flexibility around how they can receive and pay for their meal is becoming an essential. Whether it’s dine-in, take-out, click and collect, drive-thru or home delivery; whether it’s at the counter, the kiosk, the website, the telephone or the app; whether it’s cash, debit card, credit card or mobile phone payment – choice is the goal when it comes to accessing your service.
So be as flexible as your business allows. Whatever your customer’s preference, if you can meet their needs, they will keep coming back.
2. Choice: understand changing eating habits
There’s a trend in some parts of the industry today towards smaller menus, simpler choices, fewer items with more focus and quality – all of which is producing some exciting restaurant and street food businesses. But when it comes to the growing prevalence of dietary requirements and choices, whether for ethical or health reasons, restaurants can no longer afford to be a one-trick-pony.
Obviously, you can’t cater to everyone in the population, but some of these requirements are becoming very commonplace, whether by choice or necessity. And, importantly, it’s not just the people with the requirements that it affects.
For example, in my own family these days we have a vegan, a gluten intolerance, and a keto diet to work around - which turns planning family meals out into a puzzle that would challenge Rubik’s for the throne!
There are a couple of restaurants near me that have made hundreds of pounds this year alone - not because they have the best food or service, but because they have the options we need when my family come to visit.
Of course, there are fad diets that come and go. But some of these are now very established lifestyle choices or are medically necessary. Give these folks an option (and a decent one at that) and you will keep them (and, from personal experience, their families) coming back for more.
3. Generosity: don’t skimp on your loyalty program
Customers are becoming seriously adept at sifting through the torrent of offers being thrown at them every day.
Personally, I love loyalty programs from restaurants and retail. But I don’t want a hundred cards in my wallet or apps on my phone. These days I make a very quick judgement on whether a loyalty program actually offers enough reward to be worth the space in my phone or my pocket.
There are some places that I shop or eat regularly, yet I still don’t use their loyalty program because it’s just not enticing enough. What a waste of resources.
If you want to earn loyalty, you have to show some. Show them you value them. Give them something worth the space on their phone. Otherwise, you may as well employ those resources elsewhere.
