One of the best tools available to restaurant owners are online review sites. More and more these days, people are turning to sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp! to help them decide which restaurants they go to. Having a good rating on one of these sites could be the difference between bringing in a large amount of new customers or having your numbers shrink. 

But in terms of marketing, there isn't much you can do to improve your standing. For instance, with your SEO strategy, there are things you can do to improve your standing within search engines. But with review sites, it all comes down to how well you serve your customers. That being said, the more reviews you can gather, the better. To do this, there are a few proven strategies you can try, that will encourage more people to leave a review on sites like TripAdvisor, and ultimately bring in more customers. 

We spend a great deal of time and effort courting customers. Resources, finances and considerable thought goes into how to attract, draw and eventually convert those visitors into loyal customers. However, we may not be spending enough time evaluating how long visitors dwell on property.

Loyal customers are what keeps any restaurant successful, so having effective ways to engage and track them is always important. One metric Bloom Intelligence uses to measure this is the Lifetime Value of Customers. A high result indicates customers spend more time and money at your establishment.  Personalizing content for key demographics is a great way to engage customers and keep them loyal to your brand, but finding the right ways to do this can be challenging. Here are some ideas when tailoring your content.

The more you know about your customers, the better experience you can provide for them and ensure repeat business. You don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict customer behavior when owning or managing a restaurant. The Analytics Dashboard provided by Bloom Intelligence can collect several business metrics while offering free Wi-Fi for guests. One important component to understand is the customer lifetime value.

Would you like to know what store promotions are working? Would you like to know what marketing campaigns are delivering real ROI? How about your operations and your staff, wouldn't it be nice to have some type of metric to gauge the performance of your business and employees?

Have you ever wondered how long a loyal customer visits your shop? If you’re able to identify a person visiting your business as a customer, you might want to know what their average dwell time is.

While it's always exciting to realize you had a first-time customer in your shop, it's even more gratifying when they return. This begs the question: how do you really know if they're visiting for a second time?

When you're busy running a business, it may appear at first glance that you're always experiencing the same customer visitation rates on a daily basis. In reality, it probably varies more than you think, and it's impossible to measure your peak visitor times without quality technology.

Every year the National Retail Federation (NRF) publishes its annual “Holiday Planning Playbook,” which is the retail sector’s guide to understanding key lessons from the previous holiday season and how it will impact consumers in the upcoming run up to the holidays. The NRF surveys over 2,000 holiday shoppers to understand their experiences and behavior during the previous holiday season and what they expect from retailers moving forward. Along with data highlighting consumer expectations, the report provides suggestions for retailers to consider when planning for the season.

In the highly competitive and fast changing food service industry, customer lifetime value (CLV) is of immense importance to the bottom line. Obviously, losing high CLV customers and maintaining low CLV customers at their current level of spending would be bad for business. Understanding this makes it possible for you to adjust your approach to both groups by finding new ways to hold on to more profitable customers, while maybe also turning those low CLV customers into big spenders.