Here 5 Ways To Increase Sales For Cafes And Restaurants

Competition is always intense in the food & beverage industry. Still, that shouldn’t discourage you if you’re operating a cafe or restaurant. No matter what’s on your menu, there are plenty of ways you can increase your sales in the long run.

Cafes and restaurants can increase sales by emphasising customer service to improve customers’ experiences. Meanwhile, building a social media presence can bring more new customers to your business. Upselling and improving table turnover rates can also help you generate more sales daily. Lastly, capture festive season sales with special promotions offering unique items or discounts.

This quick guide will dive deeper into the 5 ways to increase sales for cafes and restaurants. Read it through to the end to discover tried and tested methods that work for businesses in the food & beverage industry!

As a business owner, there are countless methods you can use to increase your sales figures in the long run. However, some will work better than others, depending on the industry that you’re a part of.

That’s certainly true for the food & beverage industry, where you can find a few tried and tested methods for increasing sales that work better here than in any other sector.

So, if you’re running a cafe, restaurant, or both, here are 5 ways you can increase your sales:

1. Emphasise Customer Service
One of the most important keys to increasing sales in a food & beverage business is to emphasise customer service. After all, cafes and restaurants are also considered to be part of the service industry, where your staff interact with your customers face-to-face.
Customer service refers to any support you can provide customers so they’ll have a positive experience. That begins with training your staff to speak to customers pleasantly and respectfully while working quickly with a sense of urgency.

On top of that, excellent customer service also means handling complaints and challenges professionally. So even if mistakes happen, the customer will walk away knowing that you cared for their needs as best as possible.

Not only will excellent customer service keep them coming back for more, but they’ll also speak positively of your business when telling their friends and family. As a result, your cafe or restaurant will stand out even if it’s on a food street surrounded by similar businesses.

2. Special Festive Season Promotions
Malaysia is quite unique in that it has several important festive seasons all year round. That’s an important fact to understand, as customers are known to spend heavily during those periods, especially on food and drink.

As a cafe or restaurant operator, you can increase sales significantly by providing customers with special festive season promotions.

For example, you can create special promotions centred around limited-quantity special menu items, like many popular fast food outlets often do. Simultaneously, you can provide more value for money, so your establishment becomes the better option for customers.

The best way to prepare for those special promotions is by using Dropee to compare suppliers. That’s a quick and easy way to find unique items to add to your menu as part of the promotion. Simultaneously, you can compare suppliers to minimise costs and pass those savings on to your customers.

Naturally, you’ll have to spend more to prepare for those festive seasons and their special promotions. However, that’s also not a problem with the help of Dropee Credit which allows you to stock up immediately and only pay 60 days later.

You can get better items, lower prices, and stock up immediately with Dropee to make your special festive season promotions successful.

3. Upselling
Another effective way to increase sales in a cafe or restaurant is to upsell the customer. Simply put, upselling means encouraging customers to increase the size or quantity of their order.

To make upselling a part of your sales strategy, your business will require careful planning in two particular areas, which are the following:

Menu planning: Firstly, your establishment’s menu must be designed to encourage upselling. That means it should provide customers with options to upgrade their orders, whether that means larger portion sizes or better ingredients. Those enticing options can encourage sales to customers ready to spend more.

Staff training: Upselling works best when someone is actively encouraging customers to upgrade their orders. For cafes and restaurants, that ‘someone’ is the staff member taking customer orders. A well-trained waiter will know precisely which items to recommend to customers when they’re table-side with them.

Providing customers with extra options and training your staff to upsell will equip your business to increase its overall sales.

4. Improve Turnover Rate
You can also increase sales in your care or restaurant by being mindful of your table turnover rate.

By definition, the table turnover rate refers to how much time a group of customers spends occupying a table at your establishment. The less time they spend occupying a table, the more customers you can serve in a day, and the higher your sales figures will be.
You can improve your establishment’s table turnover rate by being mindful of delays at these stages:

Order taking: Sometimes, waiters take too long before collecting the customer’s orders. That will delay those orders from reaching the kitchen to be prepared.
Preparation and serving: Kitchens generally work fast, though they can sometimes cause delays. However, delays also happen when prepared food isn’t picked up and served to customers on time.

Billing and payment: Customers also spend more time than necessary waiting to pay their bills so they can vacate the table.

Table clearing: Lastly, tables must be cleared before a new group of customers can be seated.
Whether you’re operating a chicken rice shop or any other establishment, reducing the time during those stages will improve your turnover rate and lead to more sales.

5. Leverage Social Media
Lastly, remember that people are ready to spend, and they’re always searching for places to eat. Because of that, you can increase your sales by ensuring that the right people know your cafe or restaurant exists and how to find it.

An effective way to do that is to leverage social media channels. Building an online presence and showcasing your menu items on platforms like Instagram and Facebook are still effective ways to bring more customers through the door.
Besides that, businesses that offer food deliveries can also use these channels to collect orders. Doing so will open up another method for the cafe or restaurant to generate more sales online.

Final Thoughts
At this point, you’ve read that food & beverage businesses like cafes and restaurants have several effective ways to increase sales. They include tried and tested methods like emphasising customer service, improving table turnover times, upselling and leveraging social media.

On top of that, offering unique items and discounts for festive seasons can also increase a business’s sales. You can prepare for those festive seasons by using Dropee to minimise costs and utilise Dropee Credit to buy the stock now and pay later.