How to Grow your restaurants Business

 Keep your restaurant's sales up and running in the face of tough competition and swiftly shifting trends can be a difficult task. Finding the right balance between recruiting new consumers and retaining existing ones is critical to business success. When setting a new goal, it is always ideal to start by developing a strategy and breaking it down into manageable chunks. In order to assist you in reaching your aim of growing restaurant sales, we've selected six restaurant improvement strategies that you can put into action:

1. Expand the scope of your services.

Restaurant delivery and takeout services have been growing in popularity significantly over the years, and they are critical to preserving your sales in the present environment. Restaurants are being forced to close as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, which is affecting dine-in services in numerous states. Takeout, delivery, and curbside collection are some of the options that might help your business improve sales and weather current economic downturn. If you haven't decided whether or not to provide these services yet, here are some suggestions:

services for delivering food

1. Create a menu for takeout and delivery services. Create a separate menu that is exclusively available for takeout and delivery, and make it a condensed version of your regular menu. Items that are simple to prepare and that travel well are the best choices. Avoid transporting fragile products that could break or melt in the transport vehicle.

2. Make curbside pickup available. You can offer curbside pickup to your customers if they want the quickest takeout service possible. Pre-reserve a handful of parking places near your entrance if you have a parking lot. Train your employees on the right processes for handling curbside orders and taking payment at the time of delivery or pickup.

3. Provide delivery services to customers. Whether you've been thinking about it or not, now is an excellent time to start offering delivery services for your restaurant. Because of the availability of reputable third-party delivery services such as Grubhub and Postmates, you won't even need to invest in your own delivery vehicle fleet. When your consumers are unable to come to you, you can adapt by bringing your services to them in the comfort of their own home.

4. Make the most of your drive-thru window. In the event that you already have a drive-thru window, make sure it is stocked with the things you need to serve consumers as quickly as possible. In order to ensure that they are never forgotten, napkins, plastic cutlery, and condiments should be kept in plain sight. Check your speakers to ensure that they are operating at the proper volume and that your consumers can clearly hear you speaking.. As part of this process, you can collaborate with your drive-thru personnel to establish expectations for how long orders should take to complete.

5. Make online ordering a reality. Make changes to your restaurant's website so that customers may place online orders for takeout, delivery, and drive-thru service. The fact that clients may place purchases instantaneously and at any time of day or night makes ordering online more convenient than ordering over the phone for many customers. Accepting online payments will help you to complete the process in a shorter amount of time.

2. Increase your mobile presence by implementing the following:

Restaurants should use social media to promote themselves.

People are increasingly using their mobile devices to access the internet, and this is not a new development. No matter how much effort you put into your company's website, if it is not optimized for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the vast majority of your clients will leave the page immediately. Make sure your website looks amazing and performs effectively on all devices, including tablets, smartphones, and desktop computers. To improve your mobile presence, follow these suggestions:

1. Create a Google My Business listing for your company. You can create a Google My Business (GMB) listing with your restaurant's address, hours of operation, phone number, and pictures of your establishment if you don't already have one. If you don't have a website for your restaurant, the quickest and most straightforward thing you can do to help customers find your establishment is to create a Google My Business (GMB) listing. Customers can also provide reviews for your restaurant and upload images of their favorite dishes to your Google My Business listing.

2. Establish social media profiles. Consider establishing up social media accounts for your company and maintaining an active online presence in a similar manner. If you don't have time to monitor the messages that come in through your social media channels, assign one of your supervisors the responsibility of responding to them.

• Announcements should be made using social media platforms. The fact that you can post announcements for any events you may be hosting on social media is another advantage of having a company account on these platforms. You can use it to notify clients if your business is forced to close abruptly due to a power outage or other unanticipated circumstance. Of course, it's also a fantastic method to build relationships with your customers and humanize your company. The bottom line is that many of the client retention methods discussed above may be accomplished through the use of social media platforms.

See our article on mobile marketing for restaurants if you want to learn more about this issue in depth.

3. Increase the number of new customers who come into your restaurant.

You're probably aware of the importance of first impressions in business. A repeat consumer is more inclined to forgive a sub-par experience than a new customer who is unfamiliar with the brand. However, perhaps more prevalent than a negative dining experience is a forgettable dining encounter. Making just a little extra effort to provide your guests with a positive first impression will go a long way toward converting them into repeat customers and referrals. Take steps to stay in touch with them and develop a personal relationship with them.

Three Strategies for Bringing in New Customers to Your Restaurant

You understand that acquiring new clients is critical, but you're not sure how to go about acquiring them. The following are some common approaches that you can employ:

1. Take part in your city's Restaurant Week celebrations. When Restaurant Week was first established in New York, it served as a method to recognize and honor local eateries. This custom is unique to each city, but the main premise is that the city selects one week out of the year to highlight their eateries, and local restaurant owners can pick whether or not they want to participate. Restaurants who take part in the promotion provide special reduced deals that are valid throughout the week. The fact that you're offering discounts encourages folks to sample your meals makes this a terrific strategy to attract new consumers.

More information on how to participate in this type of event may be found on our blog dedicated to restaurant week.

Yelp is a restaurant review site.

2. Make use of marketing strategies to bring in more clients. Naturally, there are many traditional marketing strategies you may do, but ad placements can be extremely expensive. A strong social media presence, on the other hand, is completely free of charge, save for your time. If you are willing to invest some money in paid social media advertising, it can be a more cost-effective option to placing advertisements in newspapers. You can also encourage customers to post reviews about their eating experience with you, which will help to increase the visibility of your restaurant in search results.

In our post on social media marketing for restaurants, you'll learn about more strategies for attracting new consumers.

3. Establish a program for first-time customers. This usually entails handing free coupons to clients in order to urge them to come back. Alternatively, you can provide your new customers with a complimentary appetizer, dessert, or beverage with the purchase of an entree at no additional cost to them. This is an excellent method to demonstrate to your clients how much you value their business, and it can help to distinguish your company from the competition.

Using the tactics discussed in our blog post on how to create a first-time customer program, you can keep those consumers coming back again.

4. Increase customer loaylty by implementing Customer Retention Strategies.

a card for frequent diners in a restaurant

In many circumstances, you can consider your loyal clients to be free advertisement for your business. One of the most effective ways for any business to generate traction is through word of mouth. People generally do not believe paid advertisements, but they do believe a recommendation from a buddy for a favorite restaurant to eat. This means that your loyal clients are extremely valuable to the success of your company, and they should be treated as such in all circumstances.

Three Strategies for Retaining Customers

In order to retain their greatest clients coming back time and time again, many successful restaurants employ the following strategies:

1. Create a program to reward repeat customers. One of the most typical ways to set up a customer loyalty program is to develop a membership card that tracks each time a customer enters your restaurant, allowing them to work their way towards receiving a free item of your choice. In many cases, providing complimentary drinks and desserts is a wise decision because they are less expensive than an entree while still making your visitors feel appreciated. In your POS system, you can set up a card that tracks points earned, or a punch card that gets a new hole punched in it each time a customer comes in.

In our article on loyalty programs, you'll learn everything you need to know about them.

Restaurants that include live music

2. Participate in the activities of your local community. Hosting a charity event for a cause that is important to you is a wonderful opportunity to give back to the community, and your customers will appreciate the extra effort you put in. For example, you may designate a day on which you donate 10% of your profits to a charitable organization. You can publicize the event in advance so that clients will be aware of the opportunity to dine in your restaurant on that day if they wish to make a donation to the cause. Other methods of encouraging the local community to become more invested in your business include hosting culinary courses, beer tastings, or any other event that teaches clients about what you are selling.

3. Plan and organize events. Something as basic as providing a venue for community activities, such as corporate parties, can go a long way toward establishing a positive relationship with the local population. Customers will be more likely to come out to your bar on a weeknight if you host weekly trivia. Booking live music is another excellent approach to encourage people to return to your establishment on a regular basis. Overall, including games or music into your restaurant helps visitors feel more relaxed, which in turn encourages them to remain longer and make additional purchases from your menu

Training your servers on upselling techniques is a good idea.

A professional server will be le to enhance the sales of your restaurant just by conversing with customers. Effective upselling, in the end, allows the consumer to make their own decisions and does not make them feel compelled to purchase additional items or services. Instead, it will create the seed of temptation in their minds, leading them to order more than they had originally intended. Consider the following three primary upselling ideas when instructing your employees on these techniques:

co-op restaurant