Call Sales: +1 (833) 437-3835
Call Sales: +1 (833) 437-3835
Revel | August 19, 2022 |
When pulling reports from your business, there are a number of KPIs (key performance indicators) that can help you better understand your business, set benchmarks, and achieve your overall business goals. In this article, we take a look at one KPI in particular, average check size.
An average check is calculated based on the total number of sales divided by the number of guests during a set timeframe. This is an incredibly important metric that can help you understand the value of your customers, the performance of your workforce, and the successes of your offerings and services.
Whether guest checks for restaurants are measured daily, weekly, monthly, or year over year – it’s important to implement strategies to increase your average check size over time.
QSR Web reports that, on average, combos account for about 35 percent of sales for quick-service restaurants. And massive fast food chains like McDonalds, Starbucks, and Wendy’s have long championed this concept. To increase average check size, you can simply combine menu items, like a burger, fries, and soda as a package deal to incentivize larger orders.
Combo meals are universally popular. More often than not, someone likes to order a side of some kind with their entree. An even more likely scenario includes families choosing to order combos as their restaurant order. Naturally, average order size and average check size increase with family orders.
Of course, guests don’t always order combos because they are getting the best value for their dollar. Other motivators include efficiency through ease and speed of ordering, general affordability, and product preferences, where all their favorite restaurant menu items are included in a combo.
Take advantage of combos and the value consumers see in them in order to increase overall restaurant revenue and increase customer sales.
Premium products tap into the psychology behind pricing strategies. By introducing higher priced premium products you are setting a new perceived value of your medium and lower priced products. This enables you to slightly increase the restaurant prices on your most profitable ‘mid-tier’ products, without turning customers away. In turn, average check size grows and food customer service stays intact.
Also, you want to keep in mind a pricing strategy called relative pricing. This occurs when you place your most expensive or premium restaurant menu items next to the cheaper, but more profitable food items on your menu. Customers will go with the more affordable items over the premium, even though these items generate more revenue for your restaurant.
In a similar vein, discounts can be used to drive traffic and increase customer sales. Optimize your discounts with targeted pricing based on variables like volume, promotions, or customer groups.
With an intelligent POS system, your POS should be able to crunch the numbers, so you don’t have to. A cloud POS system, like Revel Systems®, can determine the difference between the sum of the qualifying products and the re-price value. It then applies that difference as the discount to the most expensive product on the POS, ensuring discounts are optimized for your success.
Revel’s discounts allow you to offer promotions for your products at a discounted price as a strategy to improve restaurant sales and customer satisfaction. Also, discounts can be tied to loyalty programs as another way to keep customers coming back.
Loyalty programs are often directly correlated to increased average check sizes. Customers are more inclined to spend more when special offers and discounts are provided. Also, loyalty programs build trust and form strong customer relationships. In turn, this can give your restaurant free word-of-mouth marketing and increase your overall restaurant revenue.
Pizza Sales Online reports that the average online pizza order is 18% higher than orders placed by phone. Average order sizes and check sizes are generally higher than in-store check sizes because online websites can personalize their upselling and cross-selling items to ensure that shoppers’ online baskets are full.
You want to upsell items that don’t cost too much. The best items to upsell are items customers don’t have to think twice about and wouldn’t mind spending more money on. For example, pizza online ordering websites always try to upsell a liter of soda or a dessert to add-on to a guest’s items in the checkout cart. Those extra dollars add up quickly on hundreds—or even thousands—of orders, and can increase restaurant sales tremendously In fact, 70-80 percent of customers are more likely to spend extra dollars on items that add value to their order.
Also, when consumers purchase from a person, some psychologists say this makes them purchase less out of guilt or fear of being judged. Conversely, when customers shop online, the shame factor dissipates, and they have more time to browse the menu without being conscious of who is waiting on them and judging their order leading to higher check size.
Revel Systems is the leading provider of a cloud POS system, offering your restaurant all the tools you need to increase average check sizes. We have a robust management console that allows for customization when building combos, extensive discount capabilities, a native online ordering system and more that can help facilitate increased customer sales and revenue. Request a free demo today!
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