How to get more regular customers: 15 methods that work

You get more regulars by making it easy and pleasant to come back. Customers should feel recognised, have a clear reason for their next visit and get a small reward for coming often. Most of it costs next to nothing. What it takes is doing the same things every day.

Below are 15 methods that suit a café, a salon, a restaurant or a shop. For each one you will find what it costs and what you can do this week. You do not have to do them all. Pick three and do them properly for a month.

The basics: a place where customers feel at home

1. Learn names and orders

A regular is someone who feels at home with you. It usually starts with a member of staff remembering a name or asking “the usual?”. It costs nothing and is hard for a chain to copy.

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: ask everyone on the team to learn the names of five returning customers. Just ask: “What's your name, by the way?”

2. Be predictable

Customers come back to what they can rely on. The same quality, the same opening hours and the same welcome, even on a Tuesday in February. If you change your opening hours or your range, say so well in advance so nobody ends up in front of a locked door.

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: check that the opening hours on your door, on Google and on social media all match.

3. Give a reason to come back before the customer leaves

The best moment to win the next visit is this visit. In a salon, that means suggesting a time for the next cut before the client pays. In a café, it could be mentioning that there will be freshly baked cinnamon buns on Friday. Customers should leave with a plan, not just a receipt.

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: settle on one sentence that looks ahead, such as “Shall we book you in for six weeks' time?” or “We've got soup on again on Thursday.”

Reward the ones who come often

4. Start a loyalty programme with a simple reward

A loyalty programme gives customers a concrete reason to choose you over the place next door. Keep it simple: one stamp per visit and a reward that can be explained in one sentence, such as “every tenth coffee free”. What many people call a stamp card or punch card, we call a loyalty card. It can be on paper or sit digitally in the customer's Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

A digital card does not get lost, and you build a customer list at the same time. Customers need no app: they scan a QR code, fill in a short form and add the card to their wallet.

• Cost: a paper card only costs the printing. Stampioo costs from €29 a month excl. VAT, and the first 30 days are free with no card details. On top of that comes the reward.
• This week: decide on the reward and the number of stamps. For a daily habit, 8 to 10 stamps is often about right, for a salon 4 to 6.

5. Work out the reward before you promise it

A reward should feel generous to the customer but be reasonable for you. It costs you what you pay for it, not the menu price, and it only goes to customers who have already come back many times. Say a cup of coffee costs you €0.80 to make and the card has ten stamps. Then the reward costs you less than ten cents per purchase. The figures are only an example.

With the reward calculator you can work it out with your own average purchase and your own margin.

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: find the average purchase and margin for your most popular item and compare two or three different numbers of stamps.

6. Give your staff one sentence to say

A loyalty programme nobody mentions becomes a pile of cards in a drawer. What gets customers to join is staff asking at the till, every time. One sentence is enough: “Do you have our loyalty card? Every tenth coffee is free.”

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: write the sentence on a note by the till and go through it at the next staff meeting.

7. Put the QR code where customers wait

Customers join when they are standing still anyway: in the queue, at the till or while they wait for their order. A small sign by the till with the reward in big letters does more than a poster on the wall behind you. With our free counter posters you get the loyalty card, Google reviews and wifi in a matching set.

• Cost: a few cents for printing.
• This week: print a poster and put it where customers pay.

Be easy to find and nice to visit

8. Ask for Google reviews the right way

Every regular was once a new customer, and many new customers read reviews before they come. Ask for a review when customers say something positive themselves, and make it easy with a QR code for your Google reviews by the till.

Never offer a discount, stamps or anything else in exchange for a review, and do not pick out only the customers you think are happy. Both break Google's rules on reviews.

• Cost: just the printing.
• This week: create a review code and put it by the till.

9. Keep your Google profile alive

Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a new customer sees. The right opening hours, a few recent photos and replies to reviews show that someone cares. Reply kindly to criticism too. The next customer reads your reply.

• Cost: nothing.
• This week: post three new photos and reply to the latest reviews.

10. Make it easy to stay

In a café or a waiting area, free wifi is a small thing that makes people stay longer and come back to work or study. Put up a wifi QR code so customers connect with one scan instead of asking for the password. A power socket near a table does the same job.

• Cost: nothing if you already have wifi.
• This week: create the code and put it on the tables or by the till.

11. Have a menu or price list that can be read in seconds

A cluttered menu makes customers pick the safe option, or pick somewhere else. A clear menu or price list with a sensible number of choices makes it easier to try something new next time. Highlight two or three things you want your regulars to discover. With our menu and price list maker you get a print-ready A4 sheet.

• Cost: just the printing.
• This week: cut what rarely sells and print a new version.

Fill your diary with the customers you already have

12. Make the quiet days your regulars' days

Most businesses have days when it is empty. Instead of lowering prices for everyone, you can give your regulars something extra at exactly those times: a Tuesday pastry, a weekly dish or a quiet slot for a quick treatment. If it happens on the same day every week, it becomes a habit. With a digital loyalty card you can also send a push notification to cardholders when it is quiet. In Stampioo, push campaigns are included in Pro, up to ten a month.

• Cost: whatever you give away, for example what a pastry costs you.
• This week: pick your quietest day and decide on an offer that only applies then.

13. Let your regulars bring a friend

Your best customers often know people like themselves. Give them something to treat a friend to: a coffee on the house for the friend who comes along, or a card with a first-visit offer that the regular can give away. Then it becomes a gift from your regular rather than an advert from you.

• Cost: the offer, and only when a new customer actually comes in.
• This week: print a few “bring a friend” cards and give them to ten regulars.

14. Team up with your neighbours

The hairdresser, the gym and the café on the same street often share customers. Swap posters, give each other's customers a small offer or do something together on a Saturday. It costs little and reaches people who are already in the area.

• Cost: nothing, or the value of the offer.
• This week: pop round to a neighbour and suggest a swap.

15. Get in touch with the ones who have stopped coming

A customer who stops coming is not always unhappy. Often the habit has simply been broken: a new job, a holiday, a different route to the bus. A paper card does not show who has disappeared, but a digital loyalty programme does. In Stampioo Pro you can target a campaign at customers whose last visit was 30–90 days ago, with a friendly reminder or a small offer.

• Cost: whatever you offer. A push notification to the card costs nothing per message, unlike text messages.
• This week: think of five customers you have not seen for a long time and consider what might have happened.

How to get started

Do not try to do everything at once. A good first package for most businesses is methods 1, 6 and 8: names, your staff's sentence and reviews. Then add a loyalty programme and an offer for your quietest day.

Want to set up your loyalty programme step by step? Read our guide to creating a digital loyalty programme. It covers the reward, the number of stamps and where to put the QR code.