How Guest Journey Ties to Loyalty

Popular teaching would have you believe there are two steps to understanding any concept. First is observing and learning. While there is some value to diving right in, it is far more efficient to have an understanding of the subject you’re trying to improve on. The second step is action. By actively working with your subject in any form, you have a deeper, closer understanding than you would simply by studying from afar. 

Engaging with your customers follows this same model. You can engage with them blindly, but you’re far better suited to do some research beforehand. Likewise, having all the data in the world would be nice, but it’s useless if you’re not willing to use that info to engage with them actively. 

Understanding the guest journey and loyalty are tied together and a necessity for improving your guest engagement. 

How the Guest Journey Benefits Limited-Service Restaurants

Our blog is not normally for hyping up our services, but this is one area where understanding what Incentivio offers is key to seeing the complete picture of how it can benefit your business. 

In short, Guest Journey lets you understand and see your guests' spending and visit habits. It organizes your consumers into groups and helps you see which group is responsible for most of your revenue. Most importantly, it allows you to see how providing specific guidance or prompts in certain areas could turn them from a one-and-done customer into a regular. 

The Role of Loyalty 

What does this guidance or prompt look like? For most limited-service restaurants, it’s going to be through your loyalty program. Each restaurant has different loyalty needs, so your program might look different from your neighbors, but it serves the same overall purpose. If Guest Journey is the education, loyalty is the actionable arm that helps you apply that information in a way that benefits your business— and if you do it right, it’s also beneficial to your customers. 

Merging Guest Journey and Loyalty

This personalized approach increases the likelihood of repeat visits and deepens the emotional connection customers feel toward the brand. When guests feel understood and valued, they are more likely to stay loyal, turning occasional diners into regular patrons.

By analyzing the guest journey, restaurants can identify potential churn points—moments when customers might disengage. With this insight, they can proactively address issues, offering targeted incentives to keep customers engaged and satisfied.

The synergy between the guest journey and loyalty sets modern restaurants apart. By focusing on the holistic experience rather than isolated transactions, restaurants can build lasting customer relationships, ensuring long-term success in a crowded market.

Example: Trace’s Cluckin’ Chicken Shop

So let’s use an example. Hypothetically, let’s say that I run a fried chicken restaurant as part of a shopping center near our town’s movie theater. Hypothetically, if I were looking at my guest journey dashboard, I could note that people who frequently visit my shop tend to do so around popular movie releases. This practice of my “loyalists” clearly shows that a higher percentage of my recurring revenue is obtained during these windows— a practice I can encourage by engaging through my loyalty platform. 

The easiest way to use this information would be to create a special offer that I would push to people in my loyalty program immediately preceding a big movie weekend. Whether I’m using punch, point, or tiered loyalty, I can actively encourage people who aren’t loyalists to engage in a practice that has been shown to increase visit frequency. 

I could also use this information to create a custom offer for those who are sliding or on their way to churning. Again, we have a clear idea of a good pattern; I just need to help guide people to it. If I were to REALLY go above and beyond, I could create a special incentive for people who show their ticket stubs (digital or physical) when they order. 

And truthfully, it’s that simple. With as strong a relationship between guest journey and loyalty as possible, you don’t need to assess complex data or do crazy work— you just need to identify a pattern and create a response. Education, then action. 

The Incentivio Difference 

Helping restaurants build this process and relationship with their customers is our primary goal at Incentivio. Thanks to tools powered by artificial intelligence, we’re able to easily uncover new levels of data and help restaurants use that info to attract customers. 

The guest journey and loyalty programs are two parts of a whole, and they actively complement each other as they increase the quality of your work.