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We all know that customer retention and loyalty is important, but times are changing. In the past brick and mortar shops used punch cards or something similar to keep customers coming back, but we’ve moved into the digital age. What does loyalty look like now? What about reviews? Seth Weinert, co-founder of Ovation answers this and other questions with Zack Oates, founder and CEO on this episode of “Give an Ovation”. Here are their top 4 tips on navigating reviews, loyalty, and text marketing today:
1. Make Reviews A Part of Your Culture
Online reviews aren’t just about your overall star-rating, although that is important (you need at least 4/5 stars to even come close to the top results). Online algorithms also account for how many reviews your restaurant gets a month. So, you want to encourage as many customers as possible to leave reviews (but be careful – certain strategies like paying customers directly for reviews are against Google’s terms of service).
2. Loyalty = Building Relationships
It can be tempting to think that your customer loyalty program is complete with a points system. While points systems are good, and you shouldn’t definitely use them, everyone is doing points. The way to stand out, and what’s really at the heart of customer loyalty, is creating relationships with your customers. Talk to them, find out who they are, and help them have positive experiences with your business.
3. Provide More Than 1 Feedback Option
“If your only way to get feedback is through your online reviews, you’re missing the mark.” Seth explained that one of the reasons people leave bad reviews online is that they simply have no other way to get in contact with you. Try creating a google form, or send out a question over text.Just try and give people better ways to interact with you than reviews and they will feel much more connected with your business.
4. Utilize Text Marketing
Texting is the new emailing. With a 98% open rate, sending a text is a sure-fire way to get people in your restaurant same-day. For an entire episode of “Give an Ovation” about text marketing, click here.
Need help implementing these tips? This is what Ovation is built for! Continue exploring on ovationup.com to learn how we can help grow your business.
Thanks for reading! Make sure to check out the whole podcast, as well as other interviews with restaurant/business gurus by checking out “Give an Ovation” on Youtube, podcast.ovationup.com, or your favorite place to listen to podcasts.
