11 Restaurant Loyalty Program Ideas To Promote Your Business In 2022

Restaurant loyalty programs provide the precise strategy to engage and retain a long-term relationship with the customers. For any loyalty program, reward and reinforcement are basic blocks in getting connected with the customers.  44% of millennials stick to a restaurant brand because of the reward programs.

Let us delve deeper into the loyalty program ideas that enable your customers to return to your restaurant every time.

Iconic Loyalty Points

The first step of restaurant loyalty program ideas is loyalty points, which supports the customer to earn the points and redeem easily. 

Reward points help in analyzing the average customer spending behavior along with the personalized branding approach. 

Customers can use their earned loyalty points against their future purchases or discounted services. They can also share their reward points with their friends, family, and relatives.

Reward Networks

Reward networks handle the loyalty points in a network, whereby a network of restaurants controlled by restaurant directories eliminates the manual work of maintaining the reward points. 

The drawback in this type of program is the customers transform loyal to the network but not the restaurant, which fails to support the dine-in loyalty program.

Tiered Loyalty Programs

When you wish more customers to visit the restaurant and retain them as long-term customers, then tiered loyalty programs are the perfect choice for you. 

Loyalty program ideas for restaurant design tier programs depend on the customer purchase pattern and rewards of extra points based on the repeated orders and order value.

You can even offer a bronze card to create a membership which encourages the customers to spend more to get silver or gold rewards cards. 

56% of customers love the Integration of innovative ideas into the rewards level, helping them move forward in the rewards ladder. 

Customer Referral Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty program ideas for restaurants focus on bringing new customers to your restaurant and encourage them with incentives enabling them to come back again  and again. 

When a customer visits your restaurant they will always love to share the good experiences to their friends and family through word-of-mouth. 

Referral programs transform customers into brand advocates such as customer 1 refers to customer 2 to get a 30% discount on the next purchase. Offering a voucher code for referring friends ensures the customer gets the slashed prices of the food order.

Discounts And Free Offers On Special Occasions

When you offer a discount on the customer’s food order, it helps the customer save 50% of their spending amount, which encourages them to place more orders. A tried-and-true discounting method provides various discount offers like 

• Buy one and get one Free.
• Buy one and get half of the item free.
• Buy one and catch the specific food item at slashed pricing.
• Buy a certain product amount and grab the discount for a particular item on the cheap.

You can make your restaurant bulk selling effective, leading to increased profit tickets, then offering combo deals motivates the customer to place more food quantity orders at cheap rates.  

If your restaurant is facing slow Tuesday or Wednesday sales, you can improve by providing a happy hour discount on the chicken dishes. 

When a customer places the order in your customized app instead of third-party app ordering, then offer the customer first-party discounts. 

Similarly, you can also offer discounts on wedding anniversaries and birthday food orders based on the customer contact information available in the food ordering app. 

Free Delivery

Waiving off the delivery charges entices the customers to place the order as they do not need to pay for delivery which expands the rewards program. It is not essential to offer free delivery on every order. Instead, you can offer free delivery when the value of the order exceeds a specific amount.

Customer Subscription Loyalty Programs

Subscription loyalty programs deliver foodservice repeatedly to the customers with increased business value over a long period. 

The first-time discount offers over the food orders provided after the food ordering app subscription.

Cash Back Loyalty Programs

Cashback rewards are offered to the customers when they use their debit or credit card for placing a food order. When the customer receives more profit, it motivates them to spend more, and it also retains the customer for the long term. 

Cashback loyalty programs help in recommending your restaurant business to your family and friends. You can even provide a referral bonus of $5-dollar cashback when the customer refers to a friend.

Time-Bound Loyalty Rewards

Offer discounts on specific dishes for a limited period like “grab the weekend offer” or “Avail 50% discount for the next 2 days”. 

This type of campaign assists in enticing new customers and preserving the existing customers loyal to your restaurant.

Customer Spending Based Loyalty Programs

Spending-based Loyalty programs offer loyalty credits for the number of food orders placed by the customer. These reward programs are very effective in increasing your restaurant’s profit and enable easy comprehension by the customer. 

It helps to identify high spending customers among the other customers and reward them with exciting offers.  When the customer spends more, they accumulate more points and redeem against their orders.

Secret Menu

Engage your customers with your restaurant brand by designing a secret menu consisting of top food items or few special dishes that do not come under the standard menu. 

Secret menus attract the customers to place an order to gain loyalty points. Modifying the menu every month triggers the curiosity of the regular and new customers in ordering food.

Tips For Developing A  Precise Loyalty Program To Amplify Your Restaurant Sales

Notify The Loyalty Program At The Right Time

When the customer signs up, the customer receives an instant notification about the loyalty programs and points rewarded, which inspires the customer to place more orders.

Track The Progress Of Reward Programs

Design the loyalty programs based on the analytics and reports gives the efficacy measure of customer loyalty. Weekly and monthly scorecards of the rewards show the customer engagement, frequent customer rate, and purchasing pattern. 

You can track the success of the loyalty program progress by measuring the key performance indicators.

Stay Connected With The Customers

 Promote your restaurant business with loyalty programs of various approaches such as items-based, lottery-based, points-based, smart rewards-based, and frequency-based. 

Choosing the right rewards program increases the customer response through the intuitive online food ordering platform.

Offer Better Customer Value

Loyalty programs for customers should focus on providing better customer value for food orders contrasted with the competitors, such that the customer feels that they receive the best offer than any other restaurant.

Wrap up

 Loyalty programs create a new advertising dimension for your restaurant and stay top in the customer’s mind. Working with the right loyalty programs transforms one-time purchasers and repeated customers into brand advocates for your restaurant business. 

Optimizing the rewards programs provides better business results to the restaurant sales activities.