June 07th, 2024

​Strengthening your emotional connection with guests
Recent research has found that as critical as it is for businesses to increase their guest loyalty right now, consumer loyalty has been falling. A Salesforce survey found that the portion of consumers who feel emotionally connected to brands fell from 62 percent in 2022 to 54 percent in 2023. As technology has become a necessary part of operations for many restaurants, there has been greater potential for the brand experience to get watered down. As a result, loyalty needs some careful management. Precise, data-driven personalization is at the heart of it. In a Restaurant Dive interview, Rick Camac, executive director of industry relations at the Institute for Culinary Education, said that brands that keep the same rewards without measuring the emotional connection they make with loyalty members will ultimately lose value and customers. Chipotle, whose rewards program grew almost 14 percent to more than 36 million members in 2023, is using a “personalized decision engine” to identify the free items their rewards members can receive through Freepotle, a perk the brand launched last year to drop 10 free food items into rewards program members’ accounts over the course of the year, the report said. Providing guests with such offers not only makes their experience with the brand feel fun and special – it also helps Chipotle collect reams of additional data about the kinds of items rewards members like receiving from them. That data can, in turn, feed their plans for future menu items, specials and targeted rewards offers. Earning loyalty doesn’t have to involve offering large amounts of free food, either. Consider gamifying your program with a rotating list of contests throughout the year. What might your brand do to strengthen its emotional connection with guests?

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