Category: Customer Loyalty

4 Key Customer Loyalty Metrics To Be Tracking in 2025

Posted on November 24, 2020 by - Customer Loyalty

In the competitive brick-and-mortar landscape, customer loyalty is crucial to business success.

In fact, 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition. Sixty-five percent of business comes from existing customers.

Restaurants and retail establishments need to be tracking key customer loyalty metrics to understand how their customers feel about their brand. And in an environment where online reviews significantly impact customer sentiment, businesses that do not track customer satisfaction will feel the effects sooner or later.

The same is true for customer loyalty. Companies that can closely monitor their customer loyalty metrics in detail will have a considerable advantage over their competition.

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If you’re unclear about what metrics you should be tracking to understand and improve your customer loyalty, we’ll discuss four key metrics to help you get started, as well as how to collect this valuable data.

Increased customer loyalty means increased revenue. Anecdotal evidence and online customer sentiment cannot give you the crucial data points you need to understand one of the essential ingredients for your business’s success – customer loyalty.

  • Are you currently tracking how your customers feel about your brand?
  • Do you know what percentage of your customers are returning?
  • Are you receiving accurate, measurable data from crucial customer loyalty metrics?

What metrics should you use to measure your customer loyalty, and what do they mean for business? Here are four crucial brand metrics to help get you started. 

#1. Your Brand’s Customer Lifetime Value

Your customer’s lifetime value directly relates to how long a customer remains with you and how much they spend during that time—the more loyal the customer, the greater their lifetime value. Loyal customers not only purchase with reliable frequency, but they do so over long periods. An increase in each customer’s lifetime value improves your revenue and carries financial relevance for your company.

There are various tools available that attempt to track and understand lifetime value. Still, it boils down to simply knowing how often a customer visits and makes a purchase over a certain period. Once you have that data about your customers, you can extrapolate the numbers to understand the revenue you can expect to generate. If you’re not tracking your customer’s lifetime value with accurate and measurable data, you miss a crucial customer loyalty metric.

Grow Customer Loyalty With These Tips

#2. Customer Return or Repeat Rate

Similar to lifetime value, whether a specific customer is returning or making repeat purchases is critical to your company’s revenue and growth. If you’re in the restaurant or retail business and patrons aren’t coming back (i.e., you have a high customer churn rate), you have a big problem, and it needs addressing.

If your data indicates your customer repeat rates are low, you know it’s time to consider your restaurant marketing. You could send out coupons to your email list, promote your new menu items on Facebook and Instagram, and bump up the incentives for joining your loyalty program.

But taking this kind of action starts with having the data. A WiFi marketing and analytics platform is the only practical way to gather and view this data.

#3. Customer Loyalty Program Participation

How many of your customers want to join your loyalty program? How many are participating after they’ve signed up? It’s important to know if your customers love you so much that they want a digital punch card or membership perks or if they see participating in your program as pointless. Getting your customers to participate is also crucial because the loyalty program is a direct-to-consumer restaurant marketing channel.

Once customers sign up, you can send promotions and offers, track whether they are opening your emails and visiting your website, and, ultimately, know whether they are cashing in on the perks. Knowing the redemption rates of offers is a crucial data point that helps deepen your understanding of your brand’s “sticking” power and tells you if you’re spending your money in the right places.

Do you currently present each customer who walks into your business with the option to join your rewards program? How are you tracking whether they show interest? How are you monitoring whether those in the program redeem their perks?

Improve Customer Loyalty at Your Restaurant

#4. Net Promoter Score

A Net Promoter Score is an index that measures your customers’ willingness to recommend your company to others. Understanding where your customers fall on this index helps you appreciate customer loyalty levels because it helps gauge your customers’ overall satisfaction with your business.

People share their favorite businesses and products for a few reasons: increased social capital, financial gain, and the rare selfless share (helping a friend out, etc.). Even when they are getting the benefit of sharing, people still want the process to be easy. So, it’s essential to give customers an easy and accessible way to share information about your business. Once you’ve made it easy, all you need to do is track the response.

If the response is low, you have an opportunity to make adjustments. Knowing there is room for improvement can be a good thing, especially for brick-and-mortar businesses. Room for improvement means there is room to improve your marketing and grow your revenue. But without the data, you don’t honestly know that the opportunities exist.

Defining Your Loyalty Program Metrics

 

1. Customer return rate (CRR): This measures how many of your current guests have visited in the past. 

Your CRR is determined by subtracting the number of customers you have at the end of a period and the number of customers you have acquired throughout a period. Then, you divide this number by the customers you had at the beginning of a period. 

You’ll want to be patient with tracking CRR improvements because customer loyalty takes time.

 

2. Redemption Rate (RR): This measures the redemptions of an offer campaign.

Your RR is measured by dividing the number of offers sent by the number of offers redeemed.

Keep in mind that the average RR is 13.67%.

 

3. Participation Rate (PR): This measures the number of people who engaged with your campaign.

Your PR is measured by dividing your number of promotional members by your total number of customers.

If you have a low PR, then it might be time to start evaluating how to expand your promotional reach.

 

4. Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR): This measures how many guests repetitively made purchases.

Your RPR is measured by dividing your total number of guests within the past 365 days by the number of guests who made more than one purchase.

 

5. Loyal Customer Rate (LCR): This measures your guest loyalty.

Your LCR is measured by dividing the number of unique guests by the number of guests who purchased more than four times within 365 days.

Ratings and Reviews Can Spur Customer Loyalty

Get the Data You Need for the Growth You Want

These four customer loyalty metrics are crucial to understanding your current customers and areas for improvement. With accurate, measurable data in hand, you can effectively take action to improve your customer loyalty and increase profits.

Generating the data with the proper tools, like a WiFi marketing and analytics platform, is the first step. If you don’t take that step, you’re missing out on critical opportunities to improve your marketing strategies and grow your revenue. 

The Importance of Customer Loyalty in 2025

Posted on December 11, 2019 by - Customer Loyalty, Restaurant Marketing, WiFi Analytics, WiFi Marketing

Why are loyal customers important?  It seems like an easy question to answer, but not all restaurant owners and operators understand how costly it is to lose, and then have to replace, their customers.  Plus, companies may be doing irreparable harm to their brand if they aren’t recognizing why customers aren’t loyal to their brand.

Many restaurant marketers underestimate the importance and value of their loyal customers. Others recognize the importance, but struggle to find a way to track customer loyalty and reward their loyal customers.

The Loyalty Landscape

Acquiring and keeping loyal customers is critical to the success of nearly every business. Of course, it is not always easy, especially with the amount of competition in the restaurant industry in 2025. Marketers can’t deny the importance of capturing the hearts and wallets of millennials, whose purchasing power is hit nearly $1.4 trillion in 2021.  Yet, millennials, and those following behind them, are a new and challenging type of customer to engage.

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The real trick is in customer retention.  This comes down to, among other things, customer service, access to information, brand recognition and special perks for repeat customers.  According to one digital marketing company, sixty-six percent (66%) of customers switch brands because of poor customer service.  Likewise, fifty-eight percent (58%) will never do business again with a company after a bad experience.

Conversely, over seventy percent (73%) of customers will fall in love with a brand just from friendly customer service representatives.  And, access to information will capture the hearts of fifty-five percent (55%) of customers.

Then, there’s the wallet factor.  Many customers are simply looking for the best deal. If one company isn’t offering it, loyalty to that company isn’t going to keep them from shopping elsewhere. Of millennials aged 20-34, sixty-eight percent (68%) would switch brands to get more program rewards.

Brand recognition is also important in 2025.  This may be due to people wanting to feel like the brand they love is loved by their peers. In the same way millennials turn to social media for personal reinforcement (hence, the popularity of status-sharing and selfie-taking), they also look for this with regards to the brands they choose to do business with.  It’s no surprise that brand recognition is just slightly behind quality as the most important driver of brand loyalty for millennials.

Why are Loyal Customers So Important in 2025?

Loyal customers provide the foundation for a profitable and successful restaurant business.  These valuable customers not only help a company grow quickly when times are good, but they also help companies stay afloat when times are tough.  Loyal customers are your best brand advocates.  And, they show their loyalty through their wallets, buying more and buying more often.

A loyal customer also costs a business less.  Once acquired, the company has spent what they need to spend upfront (at least for the most part).  Losing that customer means having to replace them, and paying the costs of client acquisition all over again. Loyal customers will stay up to date on the brand, find answers to questions, and are willing to spend their social capital on the brands they love.

Sip on this. Coffee is ubiquitous.  It’s cheap and you can find it anywhere.  To many, it “all tastes the same.”  Yet, a loyal customer will not only bypass a closer, more convenient shop, but they will bring their friends in, set up business meetings there, join the loyalty program, post Instagram photos of their cup o’ joe, and put up with a long wait or a mixed-up order. They’ll even tote around your branded tumbler if they really love you.

Yet, because of the prevalence of quality coffee shops, with an instance or two of poor service, a rise in price, or the growing popularity of another nearby shop, loyal customers may well be out the door.  Because the lifetime value of a customer is tied to business success, monitoring customer loyalty metrics is a good way of keeping an eye on the overall health of the business.

Here are some customer analytics metrics to which companies should pay attention.

1.  Customer Return Rate

In some ways, hotels have it easy in the brick-and-mortar space.  Each time a customer visits, they make a reservation.  So, it’s fairly easy to know how many times a customer returns.  For a retail store or restaurant, this isn’t so easy.  However, with a quality Wi-Fi analytics platform, it can easily be done.

Every cell phone has a unique identifier known as a MAC address, and your Wi-Fi hotspot can use this to identify individual customers, whether they log into WiFi or not. Every time they visit the store, the device will be recognized and those visits can be counted.  If you find that customers are not returning very frequently, you can work to address this with your marketing.  Over time, you can also create buyer personas so that you better understand individual customer patterns and customize your marketing, accordingly.

2.  Loyalty Program Sign-ups

Customer loyalty programs are important to perk-driven millennials. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how many customers who are presented with the opportunity to join your customer loyalty program sign up?  If you were to introduce the program with a seamless sign-up process as your guests log into your free wireless internet, you could have that data.

If you find that you’re struggling to get customers to join the program, you could survey your Wi-Fi users about what they look for in a loyalty or rewards program.  All you need to do so is implement custom messaging on your Wi-Fi connection landing page.  Or, offer a discount for signing in to the internet with an email. With that email address, you can invite them to join the program, reminding them of all the benefits they will receive.

3.  Churn Rate

Churn rates and customer loyalty go hand-in-hand.  If customer retention is low, it is indicative of a problem with the company’s ability to build and maintain loyal customers.

One way to track the churn rate is to track how much traffic fails to return to the location after they visit.  In tracking this metric, it is equally important to know the personas of the customers, so churn rates aren’t calculated as higher than they truly are.  Having the tools to identify and understand individual dining habits provides more accurate data.

Marketers can employ various tactics to avoid losing customers and improve customer retention.  One way is to quickly and effectively manage feedback.  Online reviews are becoming ever more critical to solicit and digest, as they can be a key indicator of why a company’s churn rate is higher than it should be.

Easily deployable tools such as a Wi-Fi marketing platform can provide guests with the opportunity to give instantaneous feedback, with the capability to send negative feedback to your customer relationship management team and positive feedback to online review websites.

4.  Net Promoter Score

A net promoter score tells a business how likely their customers are to recommend your product or service to others. This is an important component of customer analytics.  If few of your customers are willing to tell others about your brand, you may lack the base of loyal customers you need.

Tracking net promoter scores can be particularly easy if you offer free Wi-Fi at your locations.  When someone logs in, you can present the user with the question of “how likely are you to recommend our business to others?”  You could even consider requiring that customers answer this question before they connect.  With the response data, you can start to understand this important metric of customer loyalty.

If your net promoter score is low, you can consider what next steps you need to take to boost the experience your customers have.  Consider increasing opportunities for your customers to “bond” with the brand.  Host “limited-space” events, dedicate time to “like” and “share” photos your customers post on Instagram and Facebook, train your employees on ways to remember customers and their “usual” order.

One cannot overemphasize the importance of finding a tool that can track these key customer loyalty metrics.  Such a tool can help operators maintain a profitable and thriving business and can give marketers extra ammunition to fight brand wars. A Wi-Fi marketing and analytics platform that complements the free internet a business already offers to its guests is one tool to seriously consider.

5 Key Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty in Your Restaurant

Posted on May 8, 2018 by - Customer Loyalty, Restaurant Marketing

Loyal customers are a critical part of improving your restaurant as a whole. Repeat business–especially frequent business–offers a number of key benefits to your restaurant. Loyal customers, in general, are worth around ten times as much as the amount of their first purchase over time–and that number may be even higher in the restaurant industry. Just five percent more customer retention can increase your sales numbers by as much as 75%. Not only that, acquiring new customers for your restaurant costs around five times more than keeping the customers you already have. Clearly, the benefits of customer loyalty are extraordinary–and knowing how to create that sense of loyalty is critical for your restaurant.

Strategy #1: Offer Exceptional Customer Service

Chances are, your restaurant offers the same types of food your customers can find in half a dozen others within a close radius. What sets your restaurant apart, therefore, is the service you provide for your customers. That starts even before they walk in the door, with social media interactions and trustworthy marketing content that your customers know they can count on. Once they’re in the restaurant, your customers should be able to expect smiling servers who know exactly how to provide for their needs. While problems in the restaurant industry are somewhat unavoidable, knowing how to correct them efficiently will help ensure customer loyalty.

Strategy #2: Make It Fun

When customers come to your restaurant, it’s not just for the food. They’re looking for a great atmosphere. Offering something special or unique–a fun theme; games at the tables; something special for customers to watch or enjoy while they eat their meals–can transform the dining experience and make customers happier with your restaurant as a whole.

Strategy #3: Know Your Customers

The more data you can collect about your customers, the better you can get to know them–and the better you can provide them with exactly what they expect from your restaurant. From knowing what rewards will most appeal to your customers to understanding how they prefer to interact with your restaurant or what particular items they’d like to see on your menu, the more you know, the better you can do. Collecting as much data as possible from your customers will increase your knowledge of them and their requirements.

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Strategy #4: Create a Great Loyalty Program

Customers are more likely to be loyal when their loyalty is rewarded! Creating an exceptional customer loyalty program will help encourage customers to go the extra mile with your business. Give them the opportunity to earn percentage or dollar amounts off, get free goodies at the table, and more based on their visits, and watch customers visit more often as they get close to those important rewards. Opting to use an app, rather than a card, can help increase customer awareness of the program.

Strategy #5: Build a Heart Connection

There are several ways to create a heart connection with your customers, gaining their loyalty by appealing to their emotional sides. Consider choosing a charity or finding a local way to give back: customers who are passionate about those same concerns will be more likely to visit your business. Creating an iconic character or characters can also lead to increased interest from your customers.

With all the benefits of customer loyalty, it’s critical that your restaurant take steps to improve your connection to your customers, get to learn more about them, and keep bringing them back to see what you have to offer. One bad experience can sour any customer’s favorite restaurant, but a consistent connection will have them hurrying back to your restaurant for their regular meals out, allowing you to experience all of those benefits.

How to Create a Lead-Generating Digital Fishbowl

Posted on January 10, 2017 by - Customer Loyalty, Email Marketing, WiFi Marketing

Remember those business-card-filled fishbowls that used to sit on every reception counter? They were a great way to gain leads — before the digital revolution, that is. See how you can create your own lead-generating digital fishbowl by offering Wi-Fi on-site.

Fishing for Leads

This is the digital age, so generating leads has to take not only a digital turn but also a mobile one. Mobile marketing is used for a variety of reasons:

  • 50 percent of businesses use it to build brand awareness.
  • 56 percent use it to increase sales.
  • 53 percent hope to improve customer service and convenience.

 

But, 49.9 percent utilize it to acquire new customers, (aka generate leads), and that percentage will continue to grow as people become more attached to mobile devices. Between 2008 and 2015, time spent using digital media grew from 2.7 to 5.6 hours a day per person, but a more notable increase was the time spent using mobile devices. Mobile screen time jumped from a mere 20 minutes a day to 2.8 hours.

Making the Bowl Attractive

Today, consumers want to be connected no matter where they are, especially when they’re eating, shopping or just hanging out. As a matter of fact, most customers think it’s fine for businesses to track them in brick and mortar locations because they expect it to make their experience better. Here’s are some shopper wants, along with the percentage of shoppers that want them:

  • Coupons or special offers — 88 percent
  • Shortened checkout times —72 percent
  • Sale alerts — 69 percent
  • Rewards, points or other loyalty benefits—58 percent
  • On-the-spot opportunities — 44 percent
  • Reminders —18 percent

 

So, what’s the most efficient way to combine customer digital needs and wants into your mobile marketing strategy? Providing free Wi-Fi incorporates all customers expectations into one handy lead-generating tool for your business.

Filling the Fishbowl

When you offer free Wi-Fi to customers, you not only provide them the access they want, but you also gain valuable customer insight. Your Wi-Fi landing page presents multiple opportunities to get to know your customers, track their trends and offer them deals to keep them coming back.

Email Collection

Over half of businesses (56 percent) name email marketing as the number-one channel for customer retention, second only to social media marketing. Sure, you could just ask for email addresses, but people typically want something in return. By placing an email sign-up form on your Wi-Fi landing page, you get the lead and the customer gets Wi-Fi. It’s a win-win.

Social Media Logins

Up to 90 percent of retailers collect email addresses through customer logins to Facebook. With 1.6 billion Facebook users per month, you can’t afford to miss out on this lead generator — whether you get an email address or a social media profile. But don’t leave all the fun to Facebook. Integrating social media networking with these other top sites will also grant you access to millions of user profiles per month:

  • Tumblr: 550 million
  • Instagram: 500 million
  • Twitter: 310 million
  • Snapchat: 300 million
  • Pinterest: 150 million
  • LinkedIn: 100 million
Loyalty Programs

Remember those 58 percent of people who want to be rewarded for being in your establishment? You have to have somewhere to send them, so add a loyalty program sign-up and log-in to your landing page, and you’ll gain their loyalty.

Coupons and Deals

Just like the physical fishbowl that promised a winner for every drawing, your landing page can reel in savings lovers by offering discounts and specials. When they sign up, you’ll have everything you need to send them on-the-spot specials while they’re on-site and to cultivate the relationship through continued marketing efforts.

Keep connected to your current customers and find new ones by offering free Wi-Fi with all the perks of your digital fishbowl. To see other ways you can lure in the leads, contact Bloom Intelligence for a demo today.