Thursday is Get to Know Your Customers Day, which got us to thinking: Why one day a year? If the theory holds that customers like to know the owners/operators, like to feel as though they’re part of the family, shouldn’t this be a year-round occurrence? Wouldn’t it help to increase frequency of visit?

“But I have tons of regulars and we talk all the time. I’m on a first name basis with a lot of them.”

Before you make the above statement, stop and think about how many you actually know. You have somewhere between 2,000 and 6,000 unique customers. How many are you friendly with? What percentage of your customers do you really know? Be honest now: you only really know the outgoing customers, don’t you?

Here are some tips to getting to know your customers better:

• Walk the tables and talk to them. “How was everything?” doesn’t count as a conversation. It’s a start, but only a start. Where were they before they came in (awards banquet, soccer practice, dentist, park, work – where do they work)? Time of day will tell you a lot, but start the conversation.
• Note: the first bullet will give you ideas as to where you should be doing your local store marketing. Get more customers who are just like your existing customers.
• Use social media (Facebook, Twitter) to give behind-the-scenes updates on the store and your staff (“new ice machine” or “Manager Bill is going to be a daddy!”).
• Ever have someone ask you to purchase an ad in a program for a school event? Ever buy tickets to that event and attend, or give them to employees for a job well done? You’d be surprised at how appreciative all of those influencers are of your support.
• Surprise guests with a little lagniappe (a “little something extra”). A koozie, coupon, or dessert at the table gets them thinking about their next visit before their current one is even finished. That’s where word of mouth comes from.
• Think of the amazing experiences (not just mediocre, or adequate) you’ve had at other restaurants, hotels, dry cleaners, or other retail places. What made it amazing? How can you replicate that feeling?

Marketing-wise, these tactics will build frequency, and create word of mouth which will bring in new customers. They’ll also open doors for catering, marketing events, and other influencers. Plus, it makes your job more fun. Beats cleaning toilets, eh?

I’ve said it before, and folks like Jeffrey don’t like it a lot but the numbers prove him wrong, that putting butts in seats, regardless of how you do it, has long term value. Spike trial, show ‘em how good you are, treat them right, invite them back – get them more often.

You can’t have frequent customers until you have customers. Many a post has been written about why this is and why it’s not crack, and you can continue the discussion at our local store marketing forum, but for now let’s just figure trial / frequency pairs that modify behavior and boost sales. Now might be the only time for a while that people loosen their purse strings. Time to grab a little share.

- Free catering for 5 people. It’s a sampling of your service at a time when businesses are ordering catering for larger groups. It’s pretty common to hear “How much if we have 20 people?”

The result is a 25% discount to someone who wasn’t already a customer, but now will be long term. You can’t take percentages to the bank.

- Free app to groups of 4 or more (increase party size). No restrictions on this – only struggling businesses and tight-wads put parameters on this kind of hospitality.

- Black Friday = Triple Punch Day. Frequency punch cards are crack if used incorrectly, but GOLD if you do it right. This does it right – don’t let people eat somewhere else on the day they are most likely to blow their budgets!

- Every customer for 3 days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday after T’giving) gets a bounce-back coupon: BOGO with a 7 day expiration. If they’re in your place twice within 7 days this time of year, more power to them.

- FREE dessert tray with every catering order. You’ve heard of loss leaders? You make it back. I promise.

- Gift Cards – you can sell $20 worth to someone (a stretch for some fast casual places) OR you can sell 10 – $5 cards to someone who has a lot of people to buy for (people for whom they’d rather not buy)

Think like a customer, not like an owner / manager.

Intown neighborhoods are usually pretty tight groups. They’re a lot like the suburbs I grew up in where neighbors know each other and when someone is sick the social network springs into action to supply meals and support.

Case in point: Dakota Blue in Grant Park. They work with a local church so that, when the church is scheduling meal drop offs to a family that has recently had a death, a birth, or a traumatic experience, they call him first.

He volunteers for the first night. He cares about them, they care about him. (Another restaurant I work with does this same thing and has received at least 3 catering orders specifically because he does this for the church.)

Six Feet Under rose to the occasion when the Grant Park Conservancy was restoring a fountain. Donate $2 and get a cut-out fountain to write your name on and post to the wall (like Shamrocks for MD). Cheesy, a little. But the local press picked it up and the local residents already knew he was doing it.

Lastly, Applebee’s franchisees report increased customer loyalty due to community involvement and events, of which the company did more than 15,000 last year. A company spokesman said that franchisees are “involved for all the right social reasons” but “we also think there’s a very strong strategic reason to be involved.”

If you’re not involved with your community, or you don’t have a local store marketing plan for your restaurant…why not?

I recently reviewed some things from an ice cream concept. They are pushing cake sales and catering opportunities and have a program for going out to offices and other prospects.

The program is pretty good, but it misses a basic ingredient: if you want to sell higher ticket items (catering, for example) it’s easier to sell to existing, loyal, and vocal customers than it is to someone in a sales pitch.

An example (we’ll use a BBQ restaurant, but the principles are identical): what are the odds you sell a $300 catering to a group when no one has tried your product? What is the cost of that sale? You visit, you invite them in for lunch, you follow up, you leave materials. Then you have to wait until they have an occasion to buy and either hope they remember you or try to stay in front of them (more cost).

Contrast that to aggressively marketing catering to existing customers: send monthly emails that talk about catering; offer bounce-back offers for catering; draw fish bowl names for free “mini-catering” to their offices. Advantages: lower cost to a group you know has enjoyed your food.

Stick with selling higher ticket items to existing customers: it costs less and you’ll sell more. So how do you get new customers to become (eventual) large ticket purchasers? Give them the small stuff and turn them into loyal customers. Remove all barriers to trial of your product and use Frequency tactics to keep them.