Year 0 Owner vs Year 12 Owner: 3 Tricks That Turn Customers Into Regulars

Every new owner asks the same question sooner or later: "How do I get customers to come back?"

The usual Year 0 answer is more ads, more discounts, more posts. The owners who have been doing this for twelve years tend to answer differently. They fix three small things that make coming back the easy choice.

1. Never hand out a blank loyalty card

In a well-known field study, Joseph Nunes and Xavier Drèze gave car-wash customers one of two loyalty cards. Both needed the same number of paid washes for the same free wash. The only difference: one card started blank, and the other came with two stamps already filled in.

19% finished the blank card. 34% finished the head-start card. Same reward, same work.

Because a card that's already started is a card you want to finish. Researchers call it the endowed progress effect. Owners can just call it a head start.

What to do: start every new card with a stamp or two. Make the goal look shorter by showing progress on day one, not by changing the reward.

2. Put the card in the Wallet on their phone

Paper punch cards get lost, washed with jeans, or forgotten in a junk drawer. A loyalty card saved to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet stays on the phone the guest already carries.

It can show up on your lock screen when you're near. Your phone checks the location, not the restaurant. Westify never gets your location.

What to do: let guests save the card with a QR code at the counter, on the table or at check-in, and stamp it at checkout. For hotels, one stamp per stay works well.

3. Make the review one tap away

"Find us on Google and leave a review" asks the guest to search, scroll and guess. Most won't. A link that opens your Google review page straight away removes those steps.

What to do: share the same review link with every guest, whatever their visit was like. Don't filter who gets it and don't offer anything in exchange for a review. Let guests write what they really think. Westify's home screen calls this your QR and link to ask for reviews.

Now imagine this for your business

A restaurant, a hotel, a barbershop or a shop: the playbook is the same. Give every guest a head start, keep the card where it can't get lost, and make the review effortless.

Twelve years of mistakes taught experienced owners these tricks. You can start with them today.

Related: westify.app/blog/loyalty-card-apple-wallet-google-wallet · westify.app/blog/how-to-get-more-google-reviews-restaurant · westify.app/loyalty-card

Source: Nunes, J. C., & Drèze, X. (2006). The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(4), 504–512. https://doi.org/10.1086/500480