Loyal/ repeat visitors are essential to your business in the following ways:
- Keeping an existing guest is seven times more cost-effective than acquiring a new one
- Repeat visitors bolster your marketing efforts by providing you with free advertising via positive public reviews and word of mouth
- Repeat visitors typically spend 67% more than new guests
How do you create loyalty among your guests? If you need some ideas, we’ve got the list for you! We’ve put together ten tips to help you attract more repeat visitors and boost your bottom line. It’s divided into two categories: information you can use onsite and operational tips to implement behind the scenes — read on to learn them all!
5 things you can do onsite to attract more guests
1. Provide amazing customer service
Customer service is everything. It is the highest correlating factor to guest satisfaction.
88% of guests say a business's experience is just as important as its products or services. So it’s critically important that your guests receive the white glove treatment because no matter how outstanding your facilities or activities are, guests will not return if they receive poor customer service.
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Ensure that your staff is aware of the importance of incredible customer service. Be sure to let your guests and staff know that feedback will be requested at the end of a guest visit.
In this way, guests feel confident that your staff is committed to constant professional improvement and that your team will always endeavor to provide excellent service.
2. Host a day of recognition for loyal guests
Hosting a fun in-venue day celebrating your loyal guests is a great way to show appreciation for repeat visitors. It is also a good opportunity for new guests to be introduced to your venue, as your loyal guests will likely ask their friends to attend the event with them.
Your guests will feel valued and appreciated, and this connection further strengthens the positive relationship you want to foster with them.
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If hosting for a whole day sounds like a lot, consider offering free entry once a week for repeat visitors.
Free admission can be limited to specific zones in your venue, with certain novelty areas requiring paid access. In this way, you will still secure some revenue from their visit, and they might even bring their friends!
3. Ensure your experience is ever-evolving
It benefits all types of attractions venues to have a refresh now and again. Especially in this modern age of advancing technology and attention spans growing shorter, your venue must keep evolving.
Now, this doesn’t mean you need to reinvent your venue regularly, but if you have the same exhibits, the same rides, or the same experiences on show every time your guests visit, there won’t be much of a reason for them to keep visiting constantly. After some time, they may prefer to go elsewhere where they’ll have a different experience.
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The key to correctly evolving your venue is to stay true to who you are as a venue but ensure that there is always at least something new to do or discover. It doesn’t have to be every day, but maybe once a month.
Little tweaks, such as introducing new themes, different events, different food and drink options, and perhaps even a celebrity/influencer guest, are enough to keep things exciting and stay true to your brand.
4. Become a place your guests want to play AND eat
While you don’t want to detract from the fantastic guest experience you provide, it is worth noting that people do remember the food.
If your venue is the trampoline park with the best brunch or the museum with cafe-quality coffee and cake, your guests will remember this.
So if your experience is terrific AND your food is too, your guests won’t be able to line up fast enough to get in!
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Offering great food doesn’t have to be a pricey venture — you can hire a food truck or even partner with culinary influencers/ brands who will bring their expertise and followers too!
Read this next: 5 Highly Profitable Concession Stand Foods (With Examples)
5. Give guests a prize as they leave
A prize given at the end of a guest's visit is an ideal way to wrap up a fun day out. And your guests are sure to appreciate it and remember the gesture.
Rather than something like a swag bag, try to offer them a gift, like a free ride on their next visit, that will encourage them to return. And if you can, offer them something small so they can easily keep it in their bag or wallet, and its presence will remind your guest that they need to get back to your venue sometime soon!
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Gift ideas to keep your guests returning include free parking, tickets, BOGO drink vouchers, or even an invite to an exclusive event your venue is hosting.
5 things you can do behind the scenes to attract repeat visitors
1. Be the venue that consistently exceeds guest expectations
This one seems like a no-brainer, but it is the most important one. While excellent food and gifts are great ways to attract repeat visitors, nothing will draw them like the promise of an incredible guest experience.
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Ensure every aspect of your guest experience is fantastic — from your customer service to your rides to your food and the safety and cleanliness of your venue. It all matters, and it all has an impact.
Using a tool like the Guest Experience Score can help you get an accurate picture of your guests' feelings about your venue and specific factors about their overall guest experience. It also provides insights into what your guests love about your venue and which areas they think require improvement.
Read this next: Find new guests without lifting a finger using our automated GX Score tool
2. Request feedback and promptly respond to reviews
When you request feedback from your guests, they will feel important and like you value their opinion of your venue. It also shows them that you are committed to providing incredible guest experiences.
Giving guests a place to express themselves goes a long way to nurturing relationships. Plus, if you ask for their feedback and rectify any guest service issues quickly, you might save yourself from the wrath of a public negative review. So in this way, you repair the relationship with your current guest and protect your reputation for future guests looking you up online.
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Did you know that 22% of prospective guests can be lost when they stumble upon just one negative review? And that 80% of guests who had a negative experience will return if their feedback is suitably actioned?
So make sure you ask your guests for feedback and action on any outstanding matters ASAP.
3. Ensure that your guests' entire customer journey is friction-free
Your guests’ journey starts not when they enter your venue but when they first discover you online. You must ensure that every interaction with your venue — online or offline — is enjoyable, seamless, and smooth because friction will prevent guests from converting into repeat visitors.
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Optimize your website and online checkout for mobile, ensure your online experience matches your in-venue experience, allow your guests to sign waivers digitally and ahead of time, make check-in at your venue a breeze with fast POS and self-serve kiosks, and survey your guests on their experience in the most convenient way.
Every point of interaction your guest has with your business is a point won or lost towards their entire customer journey and experience with you, so make sure that it is a great one.
Read this next: How To Create An Effective Member Journey Map
4. Create a human connection with your guest
Sometimes, when you’re working so hard to increase sales and run your business, it can be easy to forget that your guests are the same as you. They just want to feel connected.
A sound way to do this is to take the time to recognize and cater to their needs at all stages of their customer journey.
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Use the data you collect from your guests via their bookings to discover what they are buying at your venue and what they like.
For example, if you have a guest who you can see loves getting involved in the events at your venue, shout them out on social media, tag them, and show them your appreciation. Connecting with guests on a personal level like this feels special. To top it off, you could send them a free ticket to your next event or a free drink in-venue on you — the possibilities are endless!
5. Reward repeat visitors for their loyalty
Rewards are the best, aren’t they? And they indeed work well to simultaneously say thank you to your loyal guests for their business while also securing future business for your venue.
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Offer a discounted ticket to your guest, which expires after a specific time, so there is an added urgency to visit you. After they visit you, you could offer them a ‘buy 3 tickets, get 1 free’ special so they will return and bring their friends too.
Enhance the entire customer experience to win guest loyalty
We hope this piece gave you some valuable ideas for things you can do in your venue to attract more repeat visitors.
Remember that your efforts behind the scenes doing things like promptly responding to negative feedback are equally as crucial to your guests' customer journey as tangible things like giving prizes and evolving your in-venue experience.
