TECH CHECK
THE YEAR OF RESTAURANT LOYALTY PROGRAMS ENDS WITH A WHIMPER
TECH CHECK: LOYALTY PROGRAMS ARE A GREAT TOOL, BUT RESTAURANTS NEED TO APPEAL TO MORE THAN JUST THEIR MOST FREQUENT CUSTOMERS TO BRING BACK TRAFFIC.
BY JOE GUSZKOWSKI
I t is often said that 80% of a restaurant’s sales come from just 20% of their most loyal customers. This (questionable) stat is frequently used to highlight the importance of loyalty programs. The people who sign up for those programs, the wisdom holds, are likely to drive most of your business. But it turns out that the other 80% of customers matter an awful lot, too. During a year in which restaurant after restaurant has launched, re-launched or updated its loyalty program in an effort to jumpstart sluggish traffic, a parallel theme has emerged: Non-loyalty members who are not being reached by those marketing efforts are taking their business elsewhere. This dynamic has been most prominent at Starbucks. Its Starbucks Rewards program boasts nearly 34 million members and is widely viewed as the gold standard for restaurant loyalty programs. But the coffee giant has been
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS JANUARY 2025
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