Better Business: Building and Maintaining Customer Loyalty

Better Business is a series of online courses by leading industry professionals sharing their insights, their experience and their tips on how to do better business in the restaurant industry. It is based on the Better Business Survey by Fine Dining Lovers, where respondents were asked to identify the gaps in their knowledge and skillsets, and what they want to learn in order to do business better.

This video features Marcus Davis - restaurateur and entrepreneur, chief steward of the Breakfast Club Reggae Hut, Alley Cat Bar & Lounge and Culture in Huston, Texas - sharing his insights on building and maintaining customer loyalty.

A passion for cooking is not enough to run a successful restaurant, says Davis. It's all about logistics. “Running a restaurant is about how to get food in the back door, how to get customers in the front door, how to get customers to the table, how to get food to the prep table, and how that customer and that plate meet in the middle at the table,” he says.

To recognise your role in that restaurant, says Davis, you have to “think like an entrepreneur”. Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking about the world and about business, it means being ambitious but also practical.

“Entrepreneurship is about filing a void in the marketplace that the market is calling for consciously or subconsciously. Listening to what the marketplace is calling for, looking for what the marketplace needs and filling that very void,” says Davis.

Davis’ recipe for success is very simple - high-quality service, high-quality product, all the time. Consistency of food and service promotes consistency of footfall and turnover. Other tips include giving back and supporting your local community, and accepting the invitation to participate in your customers' important milestones.

Take this advice from Marcus Davis, apply it to your restaurant, and see how you can do better business.