The Future of Restaurant Marketing: Why You Don’t Want to Miss Out on Chatbots
Does your restaurant use chatbots yet?
Gone are the days of traditional signage, fliers, and other outdated forms of marketing for the restaurant industry.
These methods deliver sub-standard results, especially in the age of technology, and fail to capture the thousands of potential customers who are waiting to find your business online.
The future of restaurant marketing is digital, social and location-based.
Restaurants are increasingly relying on digital channels to attract guests, foster customer loyalty, and manage their guest marketing analytics.
But most of these brands and businesses don’t simply send their target audiences to their websites or social media accounts.
They use data to find out exactly where their target demographics are already spending time online. Then, they market their offerings to this audience to increase conversion rates and keep the customers walking in.
The restaurants of the future won’t be copying each other’s marketing strategies, either. While they may use similar tools and strategies to attract new customers, they’ll rely on their digital brand to align with their locations and draw new customers in.
Here’s what you need to know about the future of restaurant marketing, and how modern tech promises to simplify and strengthen your marketing strategies.
How you can use chatbots to help your restaurant business:
1. Introducing chatbots
2. The benefits of chatbots for business marketing
3. How to use chatbots for your business
4. Online ordering
5. Reservation management
6. Promotions and special offers
7. Instant menu presentation
8. Improve customer engagement
9. Obtain valuable feedback
10. Re-targeting of past customers
11. Chatbots are the future and the future is now
1. Introducing chatbots
One of the most promising tools available for restaurant marketing and CRM today is chatbots.
AI-powered chatbots are nothing new to the industry. But they can significantly streamline and improve your customer communication strategies when used correctly.
Nowadays, a well-designed website isn’t the only way to convey your online presence to your customers and target audiences.
Chatbots are becoming a crucial part of high-level brands’ marketing strategies thanks to their ability to foster and maintain engagement.
Post-2020, the restaurant industry has become more focused on delivery than ever before, and many people are eager to have their meals delivered to them as soon as possible. Chatbots can facilitate this.
All while enhancing the customer experience by enabling customers to order online, enjoy discounts and coupons, and have deliveries sent to them in the comfort of their own homes.
Chatbots enable customers to find restaurants and eateries close to them, instantly reserve tables at their favorite establishments, and order and track food deliveries with ease.
At the same time, these bots can gather valuable data from customers.
This helps restaurant owners, managers, and marketers to understand the wants, needs and preferences of their loyal consumers.
This data can be used to notify customers of targeted offers and discounts, along with other suggestions and offerings that align with their interests and demographics.
2. The benefits of chatbots for business marketing
Restaurant chatbots are becoming a must-have tool for restaurant brands.
They are both cost-effective in implementing and enabling restaurant owners to reach their business objectives with the help of automation and data collection.
Chatbots can facilitate increased engagement with your brand, streamline and improve the customer experience across multiple touchpoints, remind customers about deliveries for collection and table bookings, simplify the advertisement of restaurant events and promotions, and even help to attract more customers to your business.
These bots are also capable of using collected data and machine learning to provide personal experiences to each customer on an individual basis, which can improve customer loyalty and sales alike.
A recent survey found that 89% of customers prefer to interact with businesses via text. A further 64% of people view businesses that interact with their customers via text in a positive light.
3. How to use chatbots for your business
Chatbots are highly versatile tools that allow restaurants to grow their businesses and their revenue streams alike.
As a restaurant owner or manager, the choice of how best to implement chatbots for your business is ultimately up to you.
You can use these bots for customer support, employee productivity promotion, and even as a marketing tool to help promote your business and boost brand recognition across numerous marketing channels.
Once you’ve implemented your bots, you can easily monitor their progress through the use of analytics tools.
Users can assign goals and objectives to their chatbots, analyze their progress, and redesign each bot’s parameters when necessary.
Here are some best case uses for chatbots in restaurants.
4. Online ordering
Chatbots can streamline the online food ordering and delivery process by accessing the platforms customers are active on.
They can facilitate orders through popular channels like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Using artificial intelligence, ordering food becomes a simple process that customers can complete via any device.
They can pay online from saved cards and set up usernames and passwords for easy access to their restaurant accounts, streamlining the process further and removing the need for customers to enter their details every time they wish to order.
Chatbots help to ensure that online orders are free of errors as they remove the aspect of human error involved during the telephonic ordering process.
5. Reservation management
Today’s customers don’t need to physically visit restaurants to book a table.
If you offer chatbot services, you can automate the reservation process and make it easier for yourself to keep track of and manage these bookings.
A chatbot can inform customers of exactly how many tables are available, minimize misunderstandings between customers and management staff, and enhance the customer experience by reducing the incidence of double bookings.
6. Promotions and special offers
AI-based chatbots can retain the chat histories and details of customers to provide you with valuable insights into each customer’s interests and preferences.
These insights can be used to offer consumers tailor-made promotions and special offers to foster increased engagement.
Bots can operate across multiple digital channels to offer customers discounts on their preferred social media and chat platforms.
7. Instant menu presentation
Offering well-presented, delicious dishes is not enough to get people flocking to your restaurant. They have to see what you have to offer to maintain interest in your offerings.
Chatbots can develop a deep understanding of consumer behavior and recommend dishes to them based on their past orders, preferences and needs.
Bots can present your menu in a more engaging and conversational way.
All while providing images of your restaurant’s best dishes to tempt potential customers.
8. Improve customer engagement
Customers can access chatbots from wherever they may be, whether they’re at home, travelling, or at the office.
AI can offer these customers targeted recommendations while reducing your need to hire dedicated customer support staff.
Bots can instantly make recommendations, take orders, offer special promotions, and answer all of your customers’ queries without needing your input.
The conversational interface helps to keep customers engaged while you focus on the more pressing aspects of restaurant marketing.
9. Obtain valuable feedback
Garnering positive reviews is the key to success for restaurants with a digital presence.
This means that winning good reviews and keeping track of satisfied customers is a must for brands that wish to grow their businesses and keep their clients coming back.
Chatbots simplify the process of obtaining reviews and feedback by automatically notifying customers to leave feedback or reviews on your social media channels and website.
They can request consent from customers to send them discounts, special offers, and event notifications in the future.
10. Re-targeting of past customers
It’s significantly easier and more cost-effective to nurture your loyal customers than it is to attract new ones to your business.
Chatbots make re-targeting your past customers easier by using their activity histories and personal details to approach them with new discounts and offers to regain their attention.
For instance, if a customer last ordered a meal on the day of their birthday, you can use this opportunity to remind them to celebrate with you again this year, and offer them a personalized voucher to use at your restaurant.
This will make your customers feel valued and recognized, improve engagement, and encourage them to revisit your establishment and see what you have to offer.
11. Chatbots are the future and the future is now
Restaurant chatbots are an exciting new development in restaurant marketing that’s becoming significantly popular among customers.
AI provides quick, easy-to-access solutions to customers’ queries and needs while helping to direct them to your restaurant by showcasing what you have to offer.
Take advantage of this technology to improve brand recognition, engagement and sales figures in the age of eCommerce and digital marketing.
Just like you can find dozens of free invoice templates and other business tools online, there are plenty of chatbot vendors to choose from.
Many of these providers also offer features and tools specifically for restaurants and other food-service industry members.
Now’s the time to take advantage of what they have to offer.
