It has been estimated that loyal customers account for approximately 70 percent of all purchases. In fact, research across numerous industries has demonstrated that increasing customer retention by a mere 5 percentage points can increase profits by more than 65 percent and growth by more than 100 percent.
Since most guests have some expectations of the restaurants they frequent, many restaurants often promise to provide an excellent customer experience. If these expectations are met and promises kept, loyal customers are the result. In order to keep promises, operators must concretely define the specific experience they want to create for customers and then create that experience.
Read the whole article by Steven Shlemon http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2006/05/08/focus7.html
