When deciding whether to track down a food truck, prospective food truck customers trust one source of information above all others. Their peers. So who sells your products or services? Increasingly, the most important person selling what you’re offering is — your customer. More specifically, the advocates of your food truck. Today we’ll show you how to create customer advocacy for your mobile food business.

How To Create Customer Advocacy For Your Food Truck

To sell more items off your menu, you need to get your current customers marketing and selling (i.e… advocating) for your mobile food business. First, find the core customers who are passionate about your food truck. This should be easy. They are the customers you know by name and the ones who frequent your truck more than their own kitchen table.

If you are new to the food truck industry and haven’t built up a loyal customer base, you can begin asking (at your service window or over social media channels): “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” Then, for those who respond with “highly likely,” make it easy for them to do so.

Ask them them to post a recommendation to their Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers, or ask them to write a great review on a site such as Yelp. A study by a Harvard Business School assistant professor, shows exactly how positive reviews on Yelp impact food truck/restaurant sales. According to the study, each star rating on Yelp translated to anywhere from a 5 to 9% increase in revenues for restaurants and food trucks.

RELATED: How To Develop Your Food Truck Social Media Voice

Deliver On Promises And Fix Mistakes

Marketing that’s based on customer advocacy and influence must keep this basic truth front and center. You can’t create or enlist a customer advocate or build a customer-based sales force without a foundation based on delivery and customers relationships. You’re going to mess up from time to time. Remember, it’s never the problem that makes customers mad, it’s how you respond to the problem.

RELATED: Why Its Important To Get In Front Of Food Truck Mistakes

The Bottom Line

If you don’t have strong customer advocates your marketing efforts will always miss the mark. Creating customer advocacy for your food truck is a lot different from getting customers to buy your menu items. Once you embrace this idea, you’ll find that customers can help you grow your mobile food business in many ways.

Start off with a fantastic customer experience, and then reach your advocates where they are (think: social media) and you’ll create brand advocates for your food truck business.

Do you have any customer advocacy tips for other vendors? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Share your thoughts in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter