Why Restaurants Should Lean Into Loyalty Programs As a Way to Increase Direct Sales

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting restaurant shutdowns, online ordering has become the go-to method for many customers. As a result, restaurants have turned to third party delivery providers in order to help meet the growing demand for off-premise orders, but these providers are cutting into restaurant’s razor thin profit margins. While third party providers offer increased exposure for many restaurants and can help to widen service and delivery areas, this comes at a cost: third party providers can charge up to 30 percent in fees per sale. So how can restaurants avoid these fees? By using loyalty programs as a way to encourage customers to order directly. 

To do this effectively and successfully, brands will need to dive into the customer data gathered from their POS system.  

Strong loyalty programs incentivize direct sales and include everything a brand needs to implement a winning marketing strategy, ...

While it may be easy to think that a sale is a…