In the food service business, your lifeline would be the customers you meet and the regulars you establish during your business. They provide the money that you earn for your business. Having a steady clientele that patronize your business would ensure that you earn during business hours and when customers come in, you earn profits. The key is making customers regulars and here are some ways to go about it.
Building rapport. Customers come and go, some by chance while others because of need. In order to make them regularly return to your establishment, you need to build rapport. This can be done by knowing the customer’s name and remembering their orders. This establishes a connection between customer and food owner. This rapport leads to familiarity and thus allows bridging the gap, making the customer feel important. This rapport would make the customer into a regular.
Extend goodwill. Once the gap has been bridged, as a measure of faith in your relationship, you need to extend some goodwill for your customers. These may be in the form of extra orders from time to time. It also may come in the form of larger servings or preferential services when requested. You have to be careful when doing this. The customer must become a regular; meaning comes in and orders a lot of times. Also, just make sure that your goodwill would not be eating into your profit margins, as this may be prone to abuse.
Do favorites. In order to elevate the customer into the esteemed circle of regulars, you would be able to learn their habits and food preferences. Once you learn them, you can make small adjustments in your menu that would be to the liking of the regular. This may be cutting up the food a certain way or serving condiments in some manner. This can help in keeping customers to become regulars. Having favorites for individuals will keep them coming back for more.
Simple gestures can turn a run of the mill customer into a valuable asset for your business establishment. You start with building rapport with your customers. Then you extend goodwill you find out that you are earning the customer’s respect. Once you do their favorites, you will see that they would be coming back for more and thus make them regulars to your hot dog stand.