Driving
down a main road near my house the other day. Reached the fast-food
stretch, where burgers and tacos and chicken and more are all
being served up in a value meal with a side of fries and a large
Coke.
Out
of the first six I passed, four of them had posters and displays
in place wanting to know if I had signed up for their app. Full
disclosure, I had not. I had none of their apps on my phone. But
it did get me thinking.
There
are several restaurants that Terry and I do frequent. And some
of them check off two interesting boxes: (1) Groups of them happen
to be owned by the same parent corporation. (2)
The parent corporation runs a reward program that unites multiple
restaurants.
You
tell me that three or four of my favorite restaurants are offering
a program where on my fourth visit to any combination of them
we’re going to get a significant dollar-value credit or a free
entrée. Chances are good I’m going to be preparing to give
you my e-mail address.
So,
yes, rewards programs and apps do work.
And,
I also understand the convenience of them. Being able to order
ahead of time from some restaurants? Awesome. Delivery? Fantastic.
Have
you ever been in line at a store where the person at the register
was having troubles getting their loyalty information accepted?
Yup, nothing like being number four in line when you can hear
the person up front trying to remember the third of five different
possible phone numbers the store might have on file. That’s a
joy.
How
about those places that have VIP lines for their members, and
the way it’s handled is so shoddy that you’re feeling as if your
purchase doesn’t seem to be as valued by the store?
I’m
not talking about rewarding regulars or app users. One day I walked
in to a restaurant, approached the then empty counter and asked
about my to-go order. As the person was about to turn around to
a table that had some bags on it, a delivery service driver arrived.
Person that was taking care of me saw him, knew that his bags
were waiting, and grabbed them first. But, as he looked them over,
the driver noted he was missing two orders. So, do you think the
server turned and checked the one remaining bag to see if it was
part of the set (or even if it was mine)? Of course not. She went
in back, looked around for the other two orders, waited for them,
and came back five minutes later to hand them to the driver. My
order was sitting on the counter, a handful of feet away from
me and paid for, getting colder while I waited ten minutes for
the driver that showed up after me to have his stuff packed together.
Now…
…before
you wonder about it being a bad day or an isolated instance of
a inattentive exception from a poor employee…
…I
was talking to someone I know that had a restaurant hammered by
the business and operational demands of the past two years. Specifically,
really hit hard at the beginning of all this back in 2019. They
needed to find some new ways of serving their customers and community.
So, they shifted to delivery services, and the orders it generated
essentially saved their restaurant. She wondered if the place
I had been in had a similar experience, since she knew of other
restaurant owners that had instituted “get the drivers out delivering
the food as soon as possible so we get good reviews” policies
that weighed heavily on handing off such orders as quickly as
possible. You know, even at the expense of the individual customer
that did everything right but might need to wait a moment.
Volume
and reviews over the single instance. And it’s happening more
and more.
I
am not going to be adding seventeen apps to my phone just so I
can get the latest and greatest benefit with a free small fry.
And there is likely a great argument to be made that claims I
am not the best customer of these places. That would be fair.
I’m
also not saying that apps and reward clubs and frequent visitor
programs are bad things. They’re not. They can be awesome.
But
when I see reports and hear complaints from business owners about
this outside disaster or that external challenge while waving
the flags that claim none of it is their fault… and I know as
a fact that their service and products have been horrible with
bad reputations over the years… I wish they recognized it all
comes back to the basics. Treat the customers right, and treat
them in a way that gets them to come back again.
The
idea my friend expressed has merit. Volume matters.
But
you also make more with happy customers paying for their side
dishes, especially when they come back again, than you do giving
discount after discount just to get people to your doors once.
May
not be a perfect slogan, and could likely use some thought and
development, but at the heart it’s true. Loyalty matters, especially
when you’ve earned it instead of giving it away.