Targeted reopening key to successfully rebuilding custom

By Andrew Catchpole

Published: 02 July, 2020

On-trade operators are advised to target the customers most keen to remerge post-lockdown to ensure a more successful reopening.

This was among the advice given by the panel at the latest joint Trade and LUX webinar, Opening Soon: Hospitality Post-Lockdown, where younger and more frequent visitors to on-trade venues pre-lockdown were identified as those “gunning to return”.

These were identified as people that visited on-trade venues two or more times a week pre-lockdown, which consultant Paul Pavli, drawing on CGA Brand Track data, said venues should swing their resources towards to draw the most eager customers back in.

The figures presented showed a consistent decline in confidence to return with increasing age, with between 27% to 28% of 18-34 year-olds confident to return as soon as restrictions are lifted, with this figure dipping to between 22%-21% for 35 to 54 year-olds, 19% for 55 to 64 year-olds, and just 16% for those 65 and above.

“Age is really important, so consider how you are going to target each segment and how you might entice them back,” said Pavli.

The research suggested a similar sliding scale along age groups in terms of how soon customers felt confident to return, with younger and more frequent visitors pre-lockdown again most likely to return in the first two weeks, or couple of months, after 4 July reopening.

Moreover, the experience on that first visit was identified as crucial as to the likelihood of the customers paying a repeat visit soon, with operators advised to “re-engage, re-assure and retrain the team”, with perceived safety protocols at the top of the list.

The panel also cautioned against opening too soon, before a venue and its staff are ready, suggesting that any misfire, uneven service or hiccup in safety routines would seriously impact on a given customer’s likelihood of returning.

Location will play another important factor, according to the research presented, with suburban venues likely to fair better than town centre businesses, as customers from the former will be concerned about using the public transport typically used to access restaurants and bars in central locations (and also likely spending more time continuing to work locally, from home, playing again to the benefit of suburban venues).

Again, the advice was to consider how and when to reopen, taking into account the time it may take for customers to regain the confidence to travel to a venue.

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