Restaurants have been collecting customer data for years using various methods. Two that come to mind are loyalty and email programs- mainly to send offers, specials, and news about what was happening for that brand. In today’s market, there’s a lot of competition and to stay in the game you must learn to collect and use customer data to your advantage. Having customer data can let you know the best ways to reach, retain and regain your customers.
When someone creates an online account, downloads and installs your app or orders from your online platform, you have the ability to collect that customer data. It is that data that is going to help drive your operations, marketing, and revenue.
We want to point out just a few of the numerous benefits you can attain from collecting data:
– It can help you make smart business decisions
Did you know that using data analytics not only will help your business to make better decisions, but also helps you make more profitable decisions, boosting revenue by 10% if used correctly? Collecting data has also become cheaper than ever before thanks to easier access to affordable technology.
– Allows you to optimize the ordering experience
By using customer data, you can ask for their preferences on things that matter most to them such as food quality versus price, customer service, reviews and recommendations, and more so you can make their experience even better than before. This data will also allow you to measure and see how the ordering experience can be optimized.
– Gives an understanding of who your customer base is
One of the best uses of collecting data is to help you figure out your customer base and better understand them. Are you targeting your marketing efforts toward the correct customer base? What are the best methods to reach and attract them? What’s their ordering behavior like and how can you use this knowledge in future marketing campaigns?
– Reports customer preferences
Now that you know your customer base, you can go a step further and find out their preferences. Knowing all about your customers’ preferences and using that information to help drive your business to create the most personalized and phenomenal experience for them is what will keep them coming back for more. This is a huge reason why collecting data is so important, when you know everything about your customer, the more likely you are to captivate and satisfy their needs before they even know it.
– Helps reduce food costs and waste so you can get control of your inventory
If you want to significantly reduce your food costs and waste, you can use the data you’ve collected to help manage your inventory more accurately as you’ll know what products are being sold the most and you’ll get a better idea of how much to order and keep on hand.
– It can help with menu management
Similar to our point listed above, you can use data analytics to see how to optimize your menu to make sure you’re offering things that are of interest to your customers’ tastes and likings. If something doesn’t seem to be selling then you can consider taking it off permanently or making it a seasonal option, this can also give you ideas as to which items could be used for sales promotions or even which items to do a highlight feature of on the menu.
– Creates better experiences for everyone
Overall, collecting data can help you create an even better experience tailored to your customer. It’s a great tool to use in creating customer loyalty because you can use their previous purchase history to suggest their favorite items to them before they order, you can notify them that their favorite items will be going on sale, or even see what changes they suggest to your company and make changes accordingly.
Now that we’ve listed just a few of the benefits of data collection, we want to point out why it’s so important and vital for an effective marketing campaign. Data collection:
- Helps you reach, retain and regain customers
- Allows you to personalize the experience
- Helps with segmentation
- Assists with creating targeted communications based on your customers
- Provides predictive intelligence for the market and trends
- Gives you the opportunity to use triggered communications so you’re sending the right message, at the right time, to the right customer.
To summarize, having the appropriate ordering platform, such as EZ-Chow, is necessary for providing the correct tools to collect valuable customer data. We can help you understand the data and use it to market to your customers’ preferences in a way that is effective and beneficial to the success of your brand.
To learn how EZ-Chow can help you with these initiatives and more, get started by contacting us here.
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Author
Marketing,Branding & e-Commerce -Consultant
Click to learn more about Bernie Fussenegger
