Restaurant Management Tips:
Let Me Introduce You to 200 of My Closest Friends
Who are your very best customers? What do they order? How often do they visit your restaurant? Answering these questions is the basis for "VIP Marketing". What is it? Quite simply, VIP marketing is relationship building. It means
you know the names, and the purchasing habits, of the most important people to your restaurant. It requires some organizational skills, some imagination, and a total dedication to the people who will become your ambassadors.
The first step is the hardest. How will you track your customers? What criteria will you use? Who will do the work?
Let me suggest the following: enlist the help of your creative team. Let them develop the criteria used to put people into the top group. Frequency of visit is a good place to start, but your restaurant may have some other factors, such as
average check or size of party. Whatever you use, start to measure your guests against the standard. Obviously, you won't treat the average patrons in a poor manner, but you will LAVISH attention on your top performers!
Once you have selected your top customers, start putting together a data base about them. Don’t let that word "data base" scare you. It doesn’t have to be a computerized system. You can use file cards, loose leaf binders, or the
back of a slow moving busboy to keep the records. You want certain information, such as birthdays, family members, personal preferences, etc., on each of the files. When one of these elite guests DOES show up, refer to the file and get to work.
At the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, they use a system like this for ALL their repeat customers. For example, when a customer calls room service, his or her name is automatically pulled up on a computer screen. If the name has an asterisk
next to it, it means that the customer has made a special request in the past. It may be something simple like "hot sauce with the eggs". Whatever the special need, the customer is accommodated without asking. However, the customer is TOLD "I understand you like hot sauce with
those eggs. We will put some on the tray for you." (What’s the sense in doing something good if you don’t tell the customer you are doing it?!)
The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly
recently reported a story about a man who saved his business through VIP marketing. Manfred Esser completely turned around the fortunes of Cuvaison Wineries by practicing what he called "Guilt Marketing". Esser identified the top 200 customers, and made them such strong allies that
they felt guilty if they bought any other wine! For example, he sent them live grape vines to plant at their homes. This made them part of the Cuvaison Grape Growers Association.
The famous Oriental Hotel in Bangkok sends its top 200 customers a bottle of Dom Perignon on their birthdays, NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE IN THE WORLD ON THAT DAY! How would your customers feel about that kind of treatment?
Now, maybe you can’t afford to send fancy champagne, (or maybe your customers don’t drink champagne), but there are many innovative things you CAN do to honor these great contributors to your bottom line, and to keep them coming back!
- Let them order OFF the menu. Keep a little something in reserve for these people. Does your chef have a specialty that isn’t usually on the menu? When you get in some special ingredients, perhaps a phone call to your top customer list will
bring them back.
- Celebrate with them. Keep them on a card list. Send them congratulations. Read the local paper and keep an eye on their accomplishments.
- Give them seating priority. Don't make them stand in line with the average customers.
You want these people to feel like they are a part of your restaurant's family. If they go somewhere else, they should feel guilty about it. After all, they know how important they are to you!
|
