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Five ways pubs can get customers to spend more money

22 July 2024 By Jessica Mason

Five top tips on how to upsell in hospitality venues have been outlined by digital marketing agency Add People.

According to Add People customer experience expert Jade Jordan, each of the tips can be used by business owners to persuade customers to spend more money in their establishments. The five tips that Jordan shared with db are as folllows:

Use closed questions
Jordan points out that one way a pub encourage people to spend more is to use closed questions when ordering. For instance, she explained how staff at Wetherspoons are trained to upsell onion rings with their burgers by asking “how many” rather than “do you want”. This gives customers the choice of two upsells, rather than a decision, she said.

Would you like a double?
Another example of a closed question used by Tim Martin’s value pub chain is reportedly designed to increase the number of people drinking a double instead of single spirit and mixer.
According to Jordan, asking “do you want a double or do you want a single?” in reference to spirits, front loads the question with double, making that a ‘reference’ point in the customer’s mind, meaning they’re more likely to opt for it.

‘appy hour
Jordan identified how most major pubs have the ability for customers to order via mobile apps, most which were originally introduced by pub chains during the pandemic.
According to the marketeer, ordering apps, unlike human employees, always know the most lucrative products to promote, and are never too busy serving to upsell.
Added to this, Jordan highlighted how apps also remove face-to-face transactions and said that online ordering often removed customers’ fear of negative judgement, leaving them free to order whatever they want. Another plus point for apps was that in a busy pub, customers could also order multiple times, or larger amounts without having to carry them which could encourage them to order more.

No £ signs
Jordan also noted: “Next time you’re in a pub, ordering from a paper menu, have a look and see if you can spot £ signs. You may have never noticed these nifty tricks, but many menus omit the £ when listing their prices. This isn’t for design reasons, but it is purely a way to convert more customers into ordering. According to Jordan, studies show that removing the sign disassociates the currency from numbers, so customers don’t feel like they are spending money. Without it, the price and number are less meaningful.
Jordan explained: “Both Wetherspoons and Stonegate, who own nearly 6,000 pubs between them, remove £ signs from lots of their printed food menus. But they also use pound-signs when they want to draw your attention, such as a deal or promotion.”

The customer is always right
Lastly, Jordan revealed how research has shown that customers frequently look at the menu’s upper right corner, followed by the middle, creating what publicans should consider to be a “golden triangle” for key items. This, she assessed means that often it is the first and last few items in each section that draw the most attention. Taking this into account, Jordan suggested that publicans that want to sell their most profitable food drinks items should try to place strategically high margin options in the first and last sections.