Ways to keep your restaurant afloat during the coronavirus crisis Will Hang Follow Mar 27 · Unlisted

So am I, and so are you.

The Problem

You know the situation. You, along with the other restaurant owners down the street, along with hundreds of thousands of owners like you across the country, are fighting tooth and nail for the survival of your businesses.

You’ve been working on this restaurant for years. Maybe you’ve even immigrated from another country to make this dream come true. Your restaurant has shaped the local community. You’ve given people their first jobs, and even helped your employees send their kids to college.

Now, your entire operation is reduced to doing the few takeout orders that trickle in every day, if you’re even open at all. As you struggle to pay rent, utilities, salaries, benefits, and even yourself, you wonder if you’ll even make it to June.

Fortunately, you might be able to keep your restaurant afloat with the help of the fierce loyalty of your existing customers. In this article, I will recap some well known tips that you can use today to survive the winter months ahead. I will also show you how easy it is to make these things happen right now with technology.

Tip 1: Let your customers know that you still care about them.

The main takeaway here is: make sure your customers know that you’re still around, and reaching them might be a lot easier than you think.

Your loyal customers will save you, but only if you remind them that you still exist, and that you care.

This pandemic won’t last forever, and the same customers that trusted you for low-key weekend meals, a date spot, or corporate catering will come back to you once this is all over. If anything, this is a great time to reengage with your customers, build community, and strengthen loyalty around your brand. If you do this properly, your repeat customers will help keep you afloat during this crisis.

The first step to all of this is to reach out to them via email or text. If you use any customer loyalty system or POS system like Fivestars, Square, Poynt, Toast, Clover, you can either:

Export customer emails or phone numbers into a spreadsheet, and then automatically send a message to every person in the spreadsheet in bulk via email or SMS using a mass emailer or mass texting app. Send messages to your customers directly from Fivestars or Square, since they have your customer data already.

Here’s how you’d get customer data and send them messages in Square.

Here’s how you’d schedule a promotional text to be sent from Fivestars.

In this message, you can check up on your customers and show that you care. You can even offer deals or ask them to purchase gift cards so that you have cash on hand now to pay the month’s rent.

Where else can you gather customer contact data? Think about all the places where you’ve been interacting with your customers. Your reservation binder? Your table waitlist? Your customer loyalty programs? All the people who have called in the past to ask about you? You’ll have to dig, but once you compile your list of customers into a spreadsheet, the next part is easy.

How do you message them en masse? You can send mass emails or texts to your customers with the click of a button by either staying within Fivestars/Square, or doing it yourself. If you choose to do it yourself, for email, use Mailchimp, Mixmax, YAMM, or any email marketing service that has a free trial so you don’t have to pay up front to start using it.

Sending bulk emails on Mixmax.

Getting started with Mailchimp.

Install YAMM (Yet Another Mail Merge).

YAMM Intro Video.

If you want to send bulk texts, there are many services online that make it super easy. Here are two (it’s so easy, the tutorials are practically on the front page of their websites!):

SimpleTexting.

SlickText.

The main takeaway here is: make sure your customers know that you’re still around, and reaching them might be a lot easier than you think.

Tip 2: Ask your customers to help with paying your bills by offering gift cards.

The main takeaway here is: find a way to get money rolling in now by selling gift cards, and fulfill them later when things are looking up.

Your loyal customers will save you, but only if you give them opportunities to do so.

One great way to do this is to use your existing customer base as a credit card that you can use to pay your bills now, that you then pay off later when things are better for everybody. The way to do this is by letting your customers easily buy gift cards online that you fulfill later. With stimulus checks rolling in over the next few weeks, the time to act is now as people look for ways to spend their stimulus money.

You can use the technique described in Tip 1 to reach out to your customers and ask them to support you by buying gift cards.

Setting up an online gift card system feels daunting, but the good news is that there are companies that have made this incredibly easy for you, and it all happens online.

Here’s how to set up an online gift card system. If you already use a newer POS system, you’re probably in luck. Square and Toast allow you to offer gift cards that integrate with your POS terminal. Furthermore, Square and Toast can create a website for you where customers can buy gift cards for your business online. You can literally send your customers a link to buy your gift cards without them ever having to go into your brick and mortar location. Your customers can choose to receive a plastic or electronic gift card.

Here’s where to get started using Square gift cards.

A video tutorial from Square about their gift cards.

Here’s where to get started using Toast gift cards.

Some other POS terminals don’t have a baked-in system for gift cards. Not to worry! There are other vendors like Yiftee that can also spin up gift card websites for you, with gift cards that can integrate with your POS. There’s also GiftUp, which also spins up gift card websites for you, but their gift cards may not integrate with your POS. To validate and redeem them for customers, you will have to install a mobile app on your phone that you keep next to your POS terminal to make it work.

The main takeaway here is: find a way to get money rolling in now by selling gift cards, and fulfill them later when things are looking up.

A fair warning: only do this if you are confident that you will be able to fulfill those gift cards. If you are not confident, make sure that your customers are fully aware of the risks of buying a gift card from you.

Tip 3: Ask your customers to buy merchandise.

The main takeaway here is: you can sell merchandise with your branding without necessarily keeping any inventory or handling any payments + shipping.

The customers who really love you want to rep your brand. Let them give you their money.

It’s easier than ever to create branded items like t-shirts or mugs that represent the brand you’ve worked so hard to create. It is good to place wholesale orders for branded merchandise to drive your costs down, but this might require you to spend money that you don’t have.

If you’re in this boat, you might be pleased to hear that there are companies that will sell merchandise for you, using your designs, and will take care of everything from creating the product to shipping it to receiving payment from the customer.

One of the best companies for this is Zazzle.

Learn how to set up a Zazzle Store and have Zazzle take care of everything for you.

All you need to do is upload your designs to Zazzle, choose some products you want your designs on, and connect your bank account. Then you need to use Tip 1 to let your customers know that you’re selling merch, and hope that some of them love you enough to buy some.

The only issue with this is that since you’re not buying in bulk, Zazzle may have to make each product to order for your customer. Although you never lose money, you may not make as much money compared to you handling everything on your own and fronting the cost of a large order.

The main takeaway here is: you can sell merchandise with your branding without necessarily keeping any inventory or handling any payments + shipping.

Epilogue

I know that some of these tips are flying around the internet, but I rarely see any resources on how you can get set up implementing some of these lifesaving strategies. I really hope this helps even a few people navigate some of the things they can do to save their small businesses. You all are really important to society and I hope you stay strong through this!

I have absolutely no affiliation with any of the services I mention in this article.