How to Attract More Corporate Lunches Inside Your Restaurant
Why is it so hard to land more corporate business over lunch? You can think of dozens of reasons, like companies providing free lunches in their cafeteria or takeout places offering cheap meals nearby, but one of the biggest is that restaurants may not always understand what busy professionals value.
While catered lunches contribute to fewer employees wanting to eat out, there is a sufficient number of busy professionals who want to dine out at a restaurant over lunch. In fact, they are ready to pay top dollar for a high quality lunch.
What Really Matters
When busy professionals are looking to have lunch outside, they value and are willing to pay more for personalized service, quality food, and no wait-time.
Also, surveys show that working professionals expect restaurants to use more technology. So to boost sales, it’s important to know how you can use online reservation and pre-ordering services to provide seamless, quality lunch for your guests.
Here are 5 actionable tips to win more corporate business for your restaurant at lunch.
1. Wait-Free Service
Executives, entrepreneurs, and other busy professionals do not want to waste time — they want to walk in the restaurant, be seated and served immediately i.e. no time wasted over lunch (which in turn increases restaurant’s table turnover).
And the easiest way to offer low-cost, wait-free service to your guests is through using cost-effective and user-friendly technology.
Allset is an online pre-ordering service that allows diners to both book a table and pre-order meals, and guarantees a wait-free dining experience in under 30 minutes. As diners book, pre-order, and pre-pay before they walk in for lunch, restaurants can prepare in advance and serve guests immediately as they arrive.
Allset works directly with local offices and sends 11,000+ orders monthly inside local restaurants. The service has built up a strong following in SF, NYC, and Chicago.
2. Personalized Hospitality
Diners love personalized experience. OpenTable’s survey says that 98% of their respondents agreed with the statement: “Personalized hospitality is a key part of my strategy for creating memorable dining experiences and building relationships with guests.”
Online reservation and pre-ordering services like OpenTable and Allset allow restaurants to record and remember guest preferences, providing tailored service for diners. For instance, after the diner has made a reservation or placed an order, the restaurant can prepare in advance and greet the guest by name as they walk in, provide them with preferred seating, and accommodate the meal based on their dietary preferences.
3. Punchy Menus
While busy professionals may love to eat, they may not have the time to go through the whole menu. Using online reservation and pre-ordering services can help you pre-select menus for diners.
Take Allset as an example, the support team works directly with the restaurant staff, only selects the most popular lunch menu items, and adds them on the app with photos and detailed description.
Typical lunches such as sandwiches and salads can get boring to diners. Try including a creative twist on your typical lunch. For instance, you can rotate and include fresh and seasonal ingredients, or add a unique topping to a basic burger.
4. Complimentary Extras
Another simple tip to win more customers is to provide complimentary extras for your corporate guests. This can be as easy as giving them a larger portion, free organic fruit, or dessert post-lunch. The return of such gesture can far exceed the minimal costs, especially when you’re serving a party of 4–5 corporate diners.
5. Online and In-Store Promotion
A lot of corporate diners make reservations and place orders online and via their phones. And you can make their lives easier and help them find you by having your menu available through different online reservation and pre-ordering services.
Allocate resources to digital marketing and social media. Post photos of your lunch meals on social media, share lists and educational posts or sponsor local community events.
Finally, make sure you promote your best service and products in-store and educate your staff well so they can help provide a great experience to guests.
Use these tips and discover how meaningful & seamless service can add true value and bring more corporate diners inside your restaurant.
by Nicole Lana and Dimitri Nikulin
