Being hit by Covid 19, we all have been on different levels. Our financial, mental, and physical health have been tested. Everything shut down for months during the lockdown including restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels, let alone socially.
However, as everything unlocks, everything is getting back on track slowly but steadily. The world has become more cautious of their heaths and put safety as their priority by wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and so on.
These practices have affected industries like hospitality which is centered around human-to-human contact. Through this blog’s medium let us discuss various methods to boost your restaurant business in the current scenarios.
#1 Upgrade Your Business to Cloud and Pay Per Use
Upgrading your business to the cloud and paying just for the services you use can save you a ton of money. Just contact a reliable cloud service provider like Microsoft itself and get the services you need. Get custom-made services as per your business requirements and pay only for what services your restaurant requires such as Mobile POS, Real-time data reports, Customer Behavior analysis. If you wish to centrally manage your restaurant business, you can do that too. Backed up by a reliable partner, you can easily train your staff to use these services and let them handle any technical issues you might end up crossing paths with.
You no longer have to take up services your business doesn’t need just because they are ‘included’ in the package. For instance, if you wish to adopt a mobile POS but want to manage accounts in Silos, you are free to make customizations like that.
#2 Hold Events and Workshops
Events and workshops are one of the most underrated ways to boost your restaurant business. You can either tie-up with different workshops or organize your own. It entirely depends upon your strategy and budget. You can boost your reach in both cases. Some of the examples are the bacon festival in California and the pizza fest in Italy. You can also organize something like this. Such events offer a golden opportunity to flaunt your delicacies and draw more customers.
#3 Enlist Yourself with Different Food Delivery Platforms
Online food ordering is a boom these days, you might find yourself fallen aback if you do not use online platforms to boost your customer reach. Being integrated to multiple channels can make communication with the customer more complex. It is advisable to implement a centralized solution for simplifying convenience, developing connections, and handle customer grievances.
#4 Promote your Business Using Virtual Media
Customers are attracted to what they see. Use this psychological fact to draw more of them. All you have to do is click some nice pictures of your food, enhance them a bit more and post them online. Apart from this, there are plenty of food bloggers who are monitoring socially active restaurants. They might either click pictures or use your clicked pickers for their food blogging. This will do a free promotion for you. Another technique is to create videos, having pandemics in effect, people have become even more health-conscious. You can post a video on your social media platform showing step by step how your cooking is complying with all the safety measures.
#5 Strategize your Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs draw customers as honey draws bees to itself. Hit a homerun with smarter loyalty programs. You can analyze your customer behavior and spending pattern, especially with cloud-based services. Ask them to enroll in your loyalty programs such as providing a 10% discount to customers who take up to 3 years of their membership. Or you can offer free beverages to customers who take up to 1 year of membership. Provide them coupons, rewards, and discounts when they revisit your restaurant.
Apart from this, you can also offer gift vouchers to your customers in the festive season. In this case, restaurants that run a buffet system get the maximum profit. They can offer a second meal free, free buffet dinner for a couple, and so on. These strategies not only boost sales but also retain customers.
We recommend avoiding physical loyalty cards and going cashless with electronic loyalty membership cards. And managing your loyalty programs cannot even get on your nerves if you have been involved in this service in your Pay Per Use Model.
#6 Adopt Cloud Kitchen
Cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens are in trend. This pandemic has boosted the trend to another level. Since it is a licensed cooking structure without a dine-in option available to prepare delivery-based food.
It is the best cost-saving strategy as you do not have maintenance and operational costs. Additionally, you can create a cloud kitchen collaborating with other restaurants. It is recommended to get a unified software solution designed for the cloud kitchen to make your management even easier.
Final Words
We have mentioned the top 8 strategies to boost your restaurant business in this challenging era, you can seek technical assistance and upgrade your business to the cloud. The best part is you do not even have to buy a full-fledged package since Pay Per Use is available these days. Microsoft provides such services specifically. Trident Information Systems has been one of the gold partners of Microsoft since 2004 and has served various brands since then. For further queries or a demo contact us.
