Bar tabs, a classic hospitality practice, can be a powerful tool to increase customer spending. Bar tabs can significantly impact your bar or restaurant’s revenue by offering convenience and fostering a sense of community.
Here’s how bar tabs can drive increased customer spending
Streamline Ordering
If your venue offers a bar tab service, it can reduce friction in the ordering process. Customers can receive faster service because bar tabs can streamline the ordering process, allowing bartenders and servers to quickly input drinks and food, reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction.
Impulsive Spending
Customers who don’t have to reach for their wallets or cards regularly are more likely to make impulse purchases, such as additional drinks or desserts. Establishments that allow for tabs will increase customer spending. Phil Dixon, a previous advisor to the BII, was adamant that “If you want to increase spend, you must retain cards.” Paul Eagles, previous Head of Risk Policy and Strategy at VISA confirmed this statement: “When using cards, people spend at least 35% more.”
Deterring Dine and Dash
We’re seeing increasing dine-and-dash incidents plaguing operators and hospitality venues. How do operators best protect themselves from dine-and-dash? Keeping customers’ bank cards while running a tab removes the temptation to ‘dash’. Securely holding bank cards allows you to check the card’s validity and offers very little chance of customers being tempted to walk out without paying if their card is securely stored behind the bar.
Enhanced Social Experience
Bar tabs can encourage customers to stay longer, as they don’t have to worry about constantly settling the bill. When friends and family are out together, bar tabs can facilitate a more relaxed and social atmosphere, leading to increased spending on shared items and rounds of drinks.
Perfect for group outings, where splitting the bill can be a hassle. A bar tab simplifies the process and ensures everyone contributes fairly.
Loyalty and Repeat Business
Bar tabs let staff know their regular customers’ preferences, leading to more personalised service and stronger customer relationships. Many bars and restaurants offer loyalty programs tied to bar tabs, rewarding frequent customers with discounts, free drinks, or other incentives.
Strategic Upselling and Cross-Selling
Bar tabs can provide valuable data on customer preferences, spending habits, and peak hours. Businesses can tailor marketing campaigns and promotions to specific customer segments by analysing this data.
By understanding the psychology behind customer behaviour and leveraging the power of bar tabs, you can create a more engaging and profitable bar or restaurant experience.
Modernising the Bar Tab Experience
Keeping customer cards to enable bar tabs in a folder or the till needs to be more professional and offer more security to the customer.
CardsSafe is the most secure way to keep food and drink tabs and reassure customers that you take their card safety seriously. CardsSafe is a cost-effective technology designed to securely retain customer credit, debit and ID cards while customers run tabs or hire a product or service. With CardsSafe, businesses can securely retain bank and ID cards, allowing staff to up-sell, reassuring customers that their cards are held responsibly, improving customer service and protecting assets. As a result, by improving security, hospitality managers can maximise profit, increase spending, and reduce losses.
