Turn app customers into your regulars.

The problem: you cook it, they keep the customer

A customer can order from you through an app dozens of times and still not be your customer. On the delivery-app ticket their phone number and email are hidden. You can't text them a deal, wish them happy birthday or tell them about your own website. The app can.

And every repeat order pays the app's commission again. On a £20 order at 15%, that's £3 each time. (What each app charges.)

Don't ditch the apps

The apps are good at one thing: putting your shop in front of people who've never heard of you. Keep them for that. The goal is to stop paying commission on the customers you've already won.

Four steps to win them back

1. Put a way back in every app order. With ServeMate, every delivery-app order can print with a handwritten-style thank-you note and a QR code to order direct next time.
2. Give them a reason to scan. The note offers 50 loyalty points for joining. One scan and they're your customer, with their details in your system.
3. Make ordering direct easy. Your own ordering website, with your name on it, for collection and delivery, now or for later, at 0% commission.
4. Bring them back again. Birthday treats and "miss us?" offers go out automatically, and the same loyalty points work at the till, website, kiosk and on the phone.

What it looks like in a real shop

A real chip shop on ServeMate used exactly this. Delivery-app orders fell from 40% to 10% of a night's takings, the average order went up as customers ordered direct, and the loyalty scheme grew to 3,000+ customers the shop can reach any time.

Work out what it's worth to you

Take your monthly delivery-app sales and your commission rate. On £20,000 a month at 15%, that's £3,000 a month in commission. Every regular you move to your own website keeps their share of that in your till. The commission calculator does the sum for you.

By Brad-Lee Navruz, founder of ServeMate. Fifteen years behind a chip shop counter, ten of them in management.