Restaurants: How to keep customers engaged during the Covid-19 Crisis

16 May 2020

It’s a tough time for restaurants who are used to wowing customers with their exquisite food and relaxing, charming or exotic surroundings. In this period of uncertainty, some creativity and innovation is essential to keep customers engaged and ensure your brand remains at the front of their mind.

The good news is that with everyone confined between the four walls of their home, screen time is up so now is definitely the time to make social media your best friend. Read on for our top tips on keeping customers engaged during this unprecedented health crisis.

Takeaway and delivery 

Although customers may not be able to dine in your restaurant, they can certainly still enjoy your dishes from the comfort of their homes. If you’ve decided to continue serving food via takeaway or delivery, we thank you and applaud you for continuing to provide us with our last-minute lunches, cheat day dinners and date night solutions.

Make sure you get the word out using social media, recommendations from local foodies or good old traditional leafletting. Of course, people can also find you on services such as Deliveroo and UberEats. And don’t forget to share your followers’ snaps! 

Online classes

Lockdown has gone on for a long time now and I think we’re all getting bored of cooking the same five dishes in our repertoire. With everyone scouring BBC Good Food for dinner inspiration, now is the perfect time to introduce some online cookery classes!

Choose a dish that’s not too much trouble and can be cooked in around 1 hour to 1 hour 30 mins. Get people to sign up on your website, send out the ingredients list and a zoom link prior to the class and you’re ready to go! And it doesn’t just have to be food... If your speciality is drinks, cocktail classes are sure to go down a treat too!

Share your recipes

The idea of sharing your much-loved recipes may fill you with fear but this is a great way to get your followers engaged and keep your food at the forefront of their minds. You don’t have to share the recipes for your award-winning specials list and of course, you can choose a starter or side dish instead. Get your followers to upload their own versions and tag you - you can even turn it into a competition and award your fave!

Share your stories

Use this quieter period as an opportunity to teach your followers some new things about your food and your history. We’ve eaten in many restaurants and we love chatting to the owners to learn about the origins of the food we’re eating and where the inspiration for each dish comes from. Share some photos of destinations that influenced your cooking, chefs you admire (yes, this can be your mum!) or unusual ingredients you add for that perfect flavour.