After years of hard-work in your restaurant business you are hit by the economic downturn. Since you sell food you can learn something from what big restaurant chains are doing. Why do you need to learn from fast food chains? Because they know something you do not. They have very good financing and can afford to hire experienced business professionals who are specialized in various areas of business.
One thing you can, and should, learn from restaurant chains is to “Know your customers!”
A recent article published in Financial Times UK “US ‘fast casual’ food sales grow” gives an example of the benefit of knowing the customers.
Panera Bread and Chipotle Mexican Grill are two restaurants in the ‘fast casual’ category (fast casual food is neither fast food nor casual dining, but, somewhere in between). Both these restaurants knew the segment of customers most likely to eat fast casual food, which is neither as cheap as fast food nor as expensive as some high class restaurants dinners. By knowing their customers they were able to focus on them. By focus I mean focus of marketing and customer service.
Both these restaurants experienced a double digit growth in first quarter of 2010.
What’s the major take away for you?
Know your customers, concentrate on them, be ready to see higher sales & beat recession!
J, Business Consultant, TOFFA
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