5 Effective Tips to Increase Restaurant Sales in 2024

In the F&B industry, there are a number of tried-and-tested ways to increase restaurant sales. You also have to deal with keeping up with your competitors.

As a restaurateur, what you need to understand is that every part of your F&B business can impact the restaurant sales. From enabling customer loyalty programs and creating combo meals to providing a stellar guest experience, there are many ways to bring an increase in restaurant sales.

We Have Mentioned 5 Tips For You to Increase Your Sales:

Rely on Existing Customers to Promote For Your Restaurant

Customers who are already making regular trips to your restaurant are the best bet for you to increase your sales. They are highly likely to recommend you to their friends and families when you ensure that they have the best possible experience while being at your restaurant. This is why you start with your customers first.

When they come to your restaurant for the first time, that’s when you make your move. Find out how they want your food; do they like it spicy, what is their preferred spice level, what is their favorite drink, and whatnot. Ensure that you are offering them the best customer service because apart from the quality of food, they also judge how they are being treated at your restaurant!

When they make another trip to your restaurant, it’s up to you and your team to remember them and their eating habits. Do entice them with exclusive offers because all customers love discounts.

These existing customers will spread the word about your restaurant based on the experience they had while being there, eventually leading to a boost in restaurant sales.

Work on Improving the Table Turnover Rates

I’m sure most of us have come across customers who prefer to stay at their tables way longer than expected, and that means the new customers have to wait longer to get their turn at the table. Sometimes this makes the new customers change their mind and leave your restaurant.

That is not good for your business.

To deal with this, you can come up with strategies to optimise the flow of customers coming in. For instance, you can implement a reservation system where guests can reserve a number of seats for themselves so that their waiting times are minimised. During peak hours or busy days do not accept any table reservations.

Table turnover rate refers to the time it takes to serve and clear the tables for the next customers. This can also be improved by ensuring that you have enough staff to manage all the tables. You also need to clear out the table for the next guests, and that will require your staff to communicate effectively and work together.

Hence, you can improve the table turnover rates by taking steps to optimise the whole operation of your restaurant.

Train Your Staff With Upselling Technique

Upselling is a sales technique that any salesman, even a restaurateur, is familiar with. This is when you persuade your customers to buy additional items besides their preferred choice.

Restaurant upselling is when you recommend side dishes, desserts, or beverages to your customers. You can also suggest free samples as well. This can not only introduce your customers to new offerings in your menu but also increase the average check size!

Your staff needs to be trained in this, with the help of which can significantly boost your restaurant’s revenue as well as improve customer experience. Show them how important it is to provide an attentive service to your customers but at the same time, do provide genuine recommendations to help them grow.

However, do keep in mind that there needs to be a balance between using the upselling technique and how it provides value to your customers! If your customer is having coffee, don’t recommend smoothies or soda. Instead, ask them if they would like some pastry or chocolate-related eateries with their hot beverage.

Manage Your Social Media Presence

You are making a huge mistake if you have zero social media presence. Because 45% of the diners claim that they try a restaurant because they saw its suggestion on social media posts.

With the help of social media platforms, you are exposing your restaurant to customers from far and wide corners of the region. More and more customers get the chance to learn about your menu offerings from your social media posts. They can also check positive reviews shared by other existing customers.

Regularly posting on social media with mouth-watering food photos, special promotions, or behind-the-scenes glimpses at your restaurants will keep your customers interested and hooked.

You can also schedule social media posts and coordinate them with major events, holidays, or special menu offerings to receive consistent visibility and engagement from customers.

If you want to check whether your social media posts have any impact on your audience, you can check analytics to track the performance of those social media posts. If customers enjoy a particular post, you can create more accordingly. Or if one post doesn’t receive a response as expected, you can adjust your social media strategy accordingly.

Overall, having a social media presence online can significantly boost brand awareness, increase customer engagement, and ultimately bring an increase in restaurant sales.

Enable Online Ordering For Convenience

Your restaurant also has customers who want the food delivered right to their doorstep. In fact, in the UAE, 58% of homeowners prefer having food delivered to their homes just because it’s convenient. Don’t deny your customers what they really want.

Enabling an online ordering system will help you to reach out more customers to bring about an increase in restaurant sales. You can provide a pick-up service to a designated location in your parking lot, for instance, where customers can come collect at their ease.

For delivery, you can create your own website, design an attractive menu with all the offerings at your restaurant, provide a flexible payment option, and have the food delivered to the destination location.

Another option for delivery is to provide your restaurant services through a food delivery platform. For instance, with the help of the Fougito Food App, restaurateurs in Dubai can grow their restaurant sales, reach potential and newer customers, and also create brand awareness. They don’t even have to worry about the delivery riders, rather Fougito has a fleet of them available to deliver food to their customers.

Wrapping Up

Running a restaurant is no easy feat. Although we have only mentioned 5 tips that you would need to increase restaurant sales, we assure you that implementing them will get you a good start in your restaurant business.

Take baby steps, and while you are implementing the tips mentioned above, keep an eye on the analytics and all. This will give you an idea of where you are doing great, and where you need to improve!

Happy restauranting!