As summer comes to an end and families return home from vacation, our customers find themselves back in their restaurants looking forward to the next travel season, when new guests arrive in large quantities. Vacationing customers was the theme of a conversation I was having with one of our clients recently.
The conversation touched on many topics over a 30 minute period. One subject in particular resonated with me long after the call ended, which dealt with marketing to the traveler through the use of technology. The customer I was speaking with has been in the restaurant business for many years and runs a successful table service concept in numerous locations throughout the United States.
Not too long ago, technology took a back seat to print media, billboards and word of mouth as a vehicle for advertising. However, today technology rides shotgun and is considered a key ingredient in connecting with current and future guests through POS software applications and social media strategies.
I found it very rewarding to listen to our customer explain how Radiant Systems has helped him connect and develop relationships with his customers by using our technology to market directly to the type of vacationer who spends money in his restaurants. Years ago he spent thousands of dollars advertising in magazines and newspapers with the hope that potential guests would read and act upon his ads. Using a combination of Radiant’s Aloha Enterprise applications, including above-store reporting, loyalty programs and point-of-sale software, has given him actionable data at his fingertips and enabled him to spend his marketing dollars wisely. While this particular customer uses many Radiant applications to help manage his business, the combination of having the above-store reporting and loyalty programs tightly integrated has allowed him to sleep easier at night knowing that he has done his best to capture as much information about the travelers who dine in his restaurants as he can during the busy summer season.
While our customer has benefited tremendously from our technology, he has now turned his focus to the phenomena of social marketing. How can he leverage the powerful consumer information available on Twitter and Facebook to draw more people into his restaurants? I take pride in knowing that I work for a company that will partner with him until we come up with a solution together. Customers for life……………….
Tags: above-store reporting, Executive, Loyalty Programs, point-of-sale software
