60% of Restaurant Sales Are From Repeat Guests—Here’s How to Keep Them Coming Back

It's easy to assume that if a guest has a positive experience at your restaurant, they'll return at least once more. But earning a repeat order in this environment where guests have countless dining options is a lot harder than you might think.

According to Olo data from more than 100 million guest records, 60% of restaurant revenue is driven by repeat guests. This highlights the immense impact a fraction of your guests can have on your bottom line-and underscores the importance of fully understanding them, catering to their needs, and increasing their lifetime value.

‍To keep guests coming back, you must first learn their preferences, motivations, and behaviors. That includes everything from order frequency to average spend, preferred ordering method, time and day of visits, marketing engagement, reviews, and survey feedback.

With the right tech stack, you can truly know your restaurant guests, unlock critical insights-including what attracted a guest to your brand, when they became a regular or stopped returning, and why-and leverage that intel to fuel your retention strategy.

Here are a few examples to help you turn one order into two, drive infrequent guests down the funnel to habituation, win back churn risks, and recover unhappy guests.

1. Welcome series

A welcome email series is a great way to deepen your connection with first-time guests and turn one order into two. Use this opportunity to tell your brand's origin story, invite guests to follow along on social media or download your appso they're the first to know about limited-time offers, or share what makes your food one-of-a-kind. The more you can tailor these messages to each guest's experience-from location visited to menu items ordered-the better ("We hope you enjoyed your frozen mocha! Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how our coffee is made").

2. Personalize marketing communications

Reengage lapsed high-value guestswith marketing emails or texts that feel personalto drive retention ("We miss you, Jack!" or "Hey Jill, it's been a while!"). Include the time since their last visit ("67 days in fact, but who's counting?") and invite them to re-order their favorite menu item. You can suggest an item that pairs well with their favorite dish ("Craving a carne asada taco? Don't forget our award-winning queso") and even add an exclusive offer to make your message irresistible. Here are 12 examples of restaurant marketing automationsyou can set up today.

"At California Fish Grill, we're focused on using our marketing and all the data we're learning about our guests in the smartest way possible. We know our guests' time is precious. The more specific and segmented we can be in putting an offer in front of them that is relevant, we know we're going to get a better response, keep them in our database longer, and ultimately get a longer lifetime value from them."

Mark Hardison, CMO
California Fish Grill
Watch the full video interview

3. Offer special promotions and discounts

Limited-time discounts ("10% off your next order") or bounce-back coupons ("Return within a month for free dessert") can motivate guests to return within a shorter period-especially if they haven't ordered in a while. But be mindful of your discounting strategy. Though discounts can be a powerful marketing tool and increase sales in the short term, they can also significantly reduce your profit margins.

4. Highlight new offerings and ways to dine

Incorporate new menu items and limited-time offers into your signage, digital ads, social media, and marketing communications to create a sense of urgency for guests to return. Don't forget to educate guests about all the convenient ways to enjoy your food and drinks-in-restaurant, delivery, curbside pickup, catering, etc.-so they know their options the next time they're thinking of dining out. Guests become more valuable to your business when they leverage more than one sales channel, so encourage dine-in-only guests to order online and vice versa.

5. Solicit guest feedback

The best way to learn how guests feel about the dining experience is to ask them. Don't wait until they post a review that could hurt your brand's reputation and turn off prospective guests. A thoughtfully designed post-visit surveycan show guests you value their opinions and are committed to improving. It can also help you identify brand advocates, recover unhappy guests, and uncover growth opportunities.

6. Respond to reviews

It's not enough to simply monitor what's being said online about your dining experience. Consumers are 41%more likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews than a business that doesn't respond to any. By directly responding to good and bad restaurant reviews, you can express gratitude, demonstrate hospitality, and show respect and empathy, building trust with current and potential guests-a key component to driving repeat orders.

7. Boost engagement on social media

Reconnect with past guests on social media. Post interactive contentregularly and engage with comments to foster a sense of community around your brand, show off your brand's personality, and stay top of mind. Remember many young people search for restaurants and make dining decisions based on what they see on Instagram and TikTok. Here are sometips to win over Millennials and Gen Z, in particular.

8. Tailor the dine-in experience to each guest

With arestaurant-specific guest data platform (GDP), every employee can spot regulars, guests who had a bad experience, infrequent visitors, or someone who might like a new menu item-whether they order in-store or online. All of this information can be displayed in the host stand systemand pushed into the POS in real time so your staff can give recommendations based on previous orders, offer congratulations on loyalty program milestones, show appreciation for survey feedback, and more. These special touches help guests feel connected to your brand and increase retention.

Where to find more restaurant guest retention strategies

Leading restaurant brands leverage all of the strategies listed above to motivate first-timers, infrequent guests, churn risks, and unhappy guests to return. The throughline is making guests feel seen and valued-whether they've visited once or multiple times. It's essential to fostering long-term relationships with guests and sustainable business growth.

For even more data-driven guest retention strategies, download our free Restaurant Marketing Guide by clicking the button below and bookmark these 15 restaurant marketing campaign ideas.

Ready to drive more repeat business and maximize guest lifetime value? Learn more about Engage, Olo's restaurant-specific marketing and guest engagement platform, and request a demo.

Photo by PeopleImages at iStock

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.