Establishing food truck regulars begins passion and emotion. The feelings you show for your customers, your business and the industry will separate you from the rest. Differentiate yourself from the vendors with canned answers who may have a well known food truck, but doesn’t have many regular customers.
There are numerous tips and strategies to attract customers and keep them. From the the wording on your food truck menu to the description of the specials and the personality of your staff all contribute to the attraction of your mobile food business. But let’s start with the five tips on making customers feel important, like food truck regulars should.
Five Tips To Develop Food Truck Regulars
- Build A Friendly Staff. Your food truck needs a friendly staff that greets customers as soon as they walk up to your truck. This does more to develop food truck regulars than anything else. The greeting has to be sincere. It can’t be a scripted greeting. Make sure that you are known to the customers, and will always be available to speak with both new and regular customers.
- Being Consistent. Consistency in the products you serve, their quality and cleanliness of your food truck all make coming to your food truck something customers want to experience again. It’s also important to have this consistency while your service staff provides each customer with the feeling that their visit is unique.
- Comping. Complimentary appetizers, desserts or special chef creations from time to time make customers feel special. Comping works well to entice customers to come back to your food truck and also make people feel as though they are part of the family.
RELATED: Times When You Shouldn’t Provide A Comp Meal
- Be Part Of Your Community. Begin to develop the community mentality. If you have time to walk the line to greet your customers, don’t hesitate to introduce one customer to another. This is great especially if they have something in common they may not be aware of. The key is not to force it. If a customer interrupts while you are speaking to another customer, introduce them to each other.
- Remember The Little Things. Remember the likes and dislikes of your customers. Train your food truck staff to remember the needs of your customers. Nothing will create food truck regulars more than being able to identify those little things that make their meal the way they like it.
The Bottom Line
A person who buys from you once is a customer. When this customer comes back and makes a second purchase, they are a returning customer. And if that person comes back over and over to buy from you, then they are a regular customer. Many food truck owners are still not convinced on the value of regular customers and pour most of their resources into new customers. I hope this article shows the importance of regulars and how they are the key to a profitable food truck business.
Do you have any additional tips on creating food truck regulars? Share your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter
