How to Increase Restaurant Sales
You maybe well positioned, located with very skilled servers and a nicely presented menu that makes customers hungry. Also, that might be equipped with a brilliant ambience and very delicious food. But when looking at your sales, we all go “ummm… what’s wrong?”. That is when you feel you have done everything right but not got the expected revenue numbers. Then you ask how to increase restaurant sales?.
In this article, we discuss a few proven tips to increase restaurants sales so, if done well, they can have a long lasting sustainable positive effect.
Upselling Heroes
If trained well, your servers can greatly increase restaurant sales without customers even noticing. That simply happens with first building a rapport to gain their trust then steering the whole ordering process.
Assume an Appetizer
If you started the ordering process by “what appetizers would you like to have?”, most people will feel they have to have it. So this is a very effective psychological trick you can use and it is %100 ethical and legal. Then it’s up to them to decide how many appetizers to order and that heavily depends on how many they are.
So bottom line is, to increase restaurants sales, servers should always assume customers are ordering appetizers to make them do so. Tweet
Suggest After-Food Orders
If your customers had a good and joyful experience the moment they walked in till they finished, chances to order more increase. Therefore, suggesting a dessert or a drink after the main course is over might work which means they’ll pay more.
Increase Rate of Table Turnover
You can’t plainly tell your customers eat and leave quickly, but you want them to do so. That’s because increasing tables turnover rate at your restaurant helps you can serve more people which leads to an increase in your sales. Tweet
To achieve that, You need first to guide customers to where they need to go the moment they enter your restaurant. This helps better coordinate between those who have reservations and walk-in guests to make movement inside the restaurant smooth and efficient. Then make sure they sit on a fit table and once they are seated, serve them quickly.
Also, try to make your menu as clear and neat as possible. Having a badly presented hard to read menu can increase the ordering time significantly. That is obviously not going to help you increase the rate of table turnover.
Using the technology at restaurants can help a lot speed up the order taking time as well as the payment time (Tweet). If you have a tablet through which customers can order and pay, you end up saving the a lot of their and your server’s times because everything is self serviced. So you receive the paid order at your kitchen to prepare and once they’re done, they leave without taking more time for payment.
Last but not least, check on them after they finish. They will feel that they spent a long time at the restaurant which pushes them to leave, professionally.
Increase Customer Loyalty
Loyal customers keep coming back again and again. This means each one spends more money and that increases their lifetime value. This a very important marketing metric that you need to always watch for and try to improve.
When customers are registered in the loyalty program, they will keep an eye on their reward and try to increase it. This means they’ll ignore other restaurants and come to you because they want to increase their rewards so they – one day- get free food.
The program could be that they earn points each time they buy so once a number is reached, they redeem it. Or you give them a free order after a number of purchases, of course, after calculating which item to give for free. Either way, it has to increase restaurant sales and lead customers to keep coming back again and again as this is the only factor to measure. If this works well, word will be spread out so their friends and family will join too which is great.
Use Online Ordering
It is a fact that making the ordering process as easy as possible increases your sales. A great way is to provide an online ordering system so customers can easily view menu and place orders. Orders can be delivery orders so customers can enjoy the smooth experience of getting food fast and east. Or pickup so they seamlessly submit their orders before they arrive so they don’t waste your and their time queuing up to get their orders.
To increase restaurant sales
You have to have well trained servers who can professionally upsell. Also, focus on how to get customers eat and leave quickly to free up tables for other new customers. At the same time, have them come back and order again through a well implemented loyalty program that is, preferably, tracked via an online ordering system. Those techniques will definitely help you increase restaurant sales sustainably.
