Sample result
Loyalty Campaign Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I have people who have been having lunch here Tuesday to Friday for four years, and I have nothing for them that I do not also give the person walking in for the first time. We are 24 people and I do not want a points app nobody will ever open."
① Four rungs with a counted signal
The ladder is read off the ticket, not off the team's impression. Twelve weeks of own-delivery orders and dining-room checks with a name leave 1,718 people: 1,330 with one or two visits in 90 days, 291 with three to five, 79 with six to eight and 18 with nine or more. Those four groups already exist; what was missing was a name for each and a different answer.
What was ruled out and why. The stamp card —ten lunches and the eleventh free— is bookkeeping rather than a bond: by the third month nobody stamps it. A discount on the bill stays out of all four rungs: it fights the goal of lifting operating margin from 8% to 14% without touching the menu. And the delivery platform carries no rung: there the app keeps the name, and you cannot recognise someone you cannot name.
| Rung | Signal that defines it | Gesture | Cost | Margin given up a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recién llegado (just arrived) · 1,330 | 1 or 2 visits in 90 days, name on the ticket | You ask the name, write it down; the goodbye uses it | 0 COP | 0 COP |
| De la casa (one of the house) · 291 | 3 to 5 in 90 days | The short opener belonging to their dish, unasked: the cup of broth from the Sancocho de tres carnes, the arepa from the Bandeja de la casa, the patacón from the Trucha al ajillo | 900 to 1,400 COP | 12,600 COP |
| Padrino (who brings people) · 79 | 6 to 8 in 90 days | Their dish held in their name —Sunday's last sancocho waits until 2:00 even if it runs out— plus the dulce de brevas for the table that asked for them | 2,600 COP | 23,000 COP |
| Familia · 18 | 9 or more in 90 days, personal date on file | The personal date: a table in their name, the house cake with a candle, and the cook comes out to say hello | 6,400 COP | 29,400 COP |
No gesture passes 15% of the 48,000 COP check: the cake, the dearest, is 13.3%. The 12,600 of De la casa is 9 dining-room visits at 1,400; the Padrino's 10,400, four desserts a year; and each rung carries the one below. The whole ladder costs 6,012,800 COP a year, 0.23% of sales, and pays back with 190 more visits: half a visit a year from each of the 388 people above the first rung. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
② The costly gesture nobody notices
A gesture is not picked for what the owner likes, but for two things: what the recipe costs and whether the guest retells it afterwards.
| It gets noticed: the guest retells it | It does not: thanked and forgotten | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3,000 COP | In. The name at the goodbye, 0 COP. The cup of broth before the sancocho, 1,400 COP. The dish held until 2:00 on Sunday, 0 COP as long as someone turns up for it. The dulce de brevas for the table the Padrino brought, 2,600 COP: it costs what a dessert costs and travels as a story. | Out. A dessert sent over without saying why costs the same 2,600 COP as the Padrino's dulce and buys nothing, because nobody knows where it came from. The stamp card belongs here too: the eleventh lunch costs 16,320 COP in food, 1,632 COP spread per visit, to teach a guest to count to eleven. |
| Over 3,000 COP | In once a year, with an owner. The personal-date cake, 6,400 COP, 13.3% of the check. It is baked only for those dates and never sold, so it is controlled by recipe and by the 15% ceiling rather than by food cost. | Out, and this is the expensive quadrant. Ten per cent off the bill costs 4,800 COP on a 48,000 COP check and buys a thank-you nobody repeats at home. A whole sancocho on the house costs 15,600 COP, 32.5% of the check: double the 15% ceiling. |
The finding is not the gesture, it is the sancocho. At 46,000 COP on the menu with a 15,600 COP cost, the Sancocho de tres carnes sits at 33.9% food cost, above the 32% demanded of any item put on promotion; to fit it would have to move to 48,750 COP. The problem there is not the gesture, it is the menu price. Since the house wants operating margin up from 8% to 14% without touching the menu, that number goes to the month's costing sheet and not to a poster, and the gesture stays as the cup of broth: 1,400 COP instead of 15,600, and the cup is the part guests retell.
The four recipe costs —900, 1,400, 2,600 and 6,400 COP—, the nine dining-room visits a year and the Padrino's four desserts are assumptions until you check them against the month's costing sheet and against your own tickets.
③ Forty-five seconds at the table
The promotion to Familia is delivered with the check, never with the food, and never runs past 45 seconds. It runs whole or not at all: half a recognition reads as a promotion.
| Second | Who | What they do | What they say, word for word |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00 – 0:08 | Floor manager | Arrives with the folder closed and comes down to table height | "Don Julián, doña Marta: this is your ninth visit in three months. Around here that has a name." |
| 0:08 – 0:20 | Floor manager | Hands over the card written by hand with their names on it; nothing is printed | "From today you are family of the house. That means Sunday's Sancocho de tres carnes waits for you until two o'clock, even if it runs out." |
| 0:20 – 0:32 | Whoever is cooking that shift | Comes out of the kitchen drying their hands, with no plate and no bill | "I am the one who makes your Trucha al ajillo with less garlic. Pleased to meet you, doña Marta." |
| 0:32 – 0:42 | Floor manager | Asks for the personal date and writes it down in front of them | "Which date of the year can you not forget? I write it here, and that day the table is yours." |
| 0:42 – 0:45 | Floor manager | Steps away | Nothing. That silence is part of the script. |
What does not happen, and it is half the design. No applause, no bell, no photograph. The house promise is home cooking, and in a home nobody claps when you sit down: a show turns a private recognition into a performance and the neighbouring tables into an audience. Nobody asks for a review, nothing is upsold and the bill is not touched. And nobody asks permission to run it: whoever has to go and find an authorisation ends up never giving the gesture.
The limit on a full Friday. Two promotions per shift at most, and none between 12:30 and 1:30, when the location's nine operations people are serving. Two at 45 seconds is 90 seconds of the floor manager across the whole service, and that does fit.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.