Restaurant Marketing Research: Are You At Risk Of Losing Precious Customers?

I did some restaurant marketing research, and it turns out there are a few important things I want to share with my fellow restaurant operators.

Imagine your restaurant as a five gallon bucket. Every day you try your best to fill that bucket with customers. Sometimes there’s healthy flow of people, sometimes it’s barely a trickle, sometimes it seems like the bucket’s about to overflow. But here is the thing. No matter what kind of day you’re having, every customer that walks through those doors are grading their experience and deciding whether your place is worth coming back to a second time or not.

The less holes in your bucket, the more diners you retain.

I recently read this report from restaurant marketing group, an organization specializing in restaurant marketing research, and the report showed some familiar figures. Here goes my analysis.

According to the report, 36% of respondents cited value and price as their top reason for not returning to a restaurant. If I remember correctly, that’s a sharp 11% increase in one year.

Customers are looking for value. And that means good food at great prices. Sadly anything that’s been labeled as expensive is getting killed thanks to the harsh economic conditions. I’m thinking Starbucks, or something along those lines.

Another reason for leaking customers is quality of service, which rose from 10% to 23% from last year. This was to be expected. I mean, who’d want to eat in a restaurant where the waiters don’t even know how to arrange the silverware properly on the table? You don’t need restaurant marketing research for that.

But the most interesting thing about the 2009 statistics is that location went down 7%. It’s the first time the restaurant’s address is less of a problem for diners in years. It’s like the customers are saying, “Name me a place with good food and great service and I’m there.”

The good news is that menu prices and service are two things the restaurant operator can control, to an extent. There’s no denying these are tough times for running a restaurant business. But based on these reports, those who choose to focus on the fundamentals of good restaurant management—good food, great service, and even better prices, etc.—are the ones who are going to survive.

Now you know where the leaks are so you can patch them up, thanks to RMG’s in-depth restaurant marketing research.