Jul 22, 2022
A loyalty program for restaurants and bars that rewards users for frequency of visits and spending.
With so many options for eating out these days, people rarely want to return to the same place over and over again. It is always difficult for restaurants to maintain the frequency of customers, no matter how good the food is. Either people get bored or some new place that offers a better experience. Restaurants are one of the hardest things to scale, and very few have successfully done it.
Restaurants would benefit from a loyalty program that rewards frequent visitors and spending with unique memberships and experiences. The most important aspect would be to make it very limited and to create tiers in which being a top member is challenging but also most rewarding.
Since I go to Milano every week. I wish they had such a membership. Members could participate in a special tastings, be involved in coming up with new flavours, receive long-term discounts, and attend events designed for members only, the possibilities are endless.
It has happened more than once that I decided to try a new place because I had been to Milano frequently and ended up disappointed, after all, there's nothing worse than eating a high-calorie dessert with no satisfaction. A membership program would just induce people to de-risk and just visit their favourite restaurants again and again.
As with any loyalty program or membership, there are so many factors involved. The harder it is to be a part of, the more people will pay to become a part of it. It very quickly becomes status-driven moving away from pure utility. Getting the balance right and gaming it initially is the hardest part, but once you do, you strike gold.
The user experience should be as simple as the current UPI payment through QR codes. Leveraging Web3 technology for tokenisation would add great value.
It may seem that restaurants are a good place to start, but the bigger picture is a blockchain-based platform for loyalty programs that works as seamlessly as UPI. It would allow merchants/providers to create their own loyalty programs, specially tailored for their clients.
A user will have an easy time earning loyalty points and redeeming them for great rewards with just a few taps. These programs will allow merchants to build trust and reward customers in ways big or small.
