In this blog:

• Building expectation & delivering a memorable experience
• Using Scarcity to Prompt Purchase
• Adopting Waiting Line Psychology
• Remembering Customer Loyalty is a Path to Revenue

There’s a Cajun / Creole restaurant in Santa Barbara, California that has been positioned at #1 on my Favourite Restaurants of All Time List for years, and although I don’t live within driving distance anymore, whenever I visit the area (I currently live a 16-hour plane ride + a 2-hour drive away), I always designate an evening to eat there.

From a marketing perspective there are a range of things I love about The Palace Grill, that I think highlight the value of great customer care and experience – something readily available to any small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), that doesn’t necessarily need to cost a lot of money, just a level of commitment to adding great experience elements at every stage of the customer journey.

Here’s a look at a few of my favourite experience elements from this magnificent restaurant, with some great marketing insights for any SMB:

We first visited the restaurant because a friend didn’t just recommend the place, they said we absolutely must go together (it’s unclear if we had a choice, but this friend is great at dining suggestions).  The reason they wanted to be there when we visited, was partly because they loved the food, but also to enjoy our reaction to a few of the experience elements this restaurant included. Here’s a look at a few tactical insights, from a marketing perspective.

Building expectation & delivering a memorable experience

Walking into this Cajun / Creole restaurant felt like a New Orleans encounter. The décor was lively, colourful, and quirky, the music created a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and there was always a host who would greet you as you came in, and then professional wait staff who would show you to your table and run you through the menu.

From memory, service promptness when it came to each course varied, but it didn’t matter as a free basket of assorted savoury and sweet muffins (in place of bread) kept the meal moving.

A highlight of the night for this marketing extrovert, was the regular sing-along that was a delightful surprise the first time, and then an ‘insider-joke’ that was fun to watch others discover. At around 7.30pm songbooks were handed out, the wait staff would pause, and the whole restaurant would break out in song to It’s a Wonderful World or That’s Amorè.  Everyone would clink glasses, the kitchen staff would flame up the grill at the end of the song, and then all would return back to regular dining.  And yes, it was still entertaining if you were standing outside watching while in line.

At this point, I suspect I have lost a few folks who either felt this was ‘dinner and a show’ or ‘not something for the introverted amongst us’.  Hear me out. We work with luxury brands that build an aura of unattainable and exclusive – yet some of the learnings around experience, regardless of your brand persona, are still relevant. So, stick with me…hopefully there are some transferrable learnings, even if you don’t intent on adding a sing-along to your customer experience.

Peppering brand elements using visual, verbal, and vocal cues helps to create a memorable experience for your customers and helps to set you apart from your competition. If you’re not sure where to start, ask your team or customers, they’ll likely have a few good ideas.

Using Scarcity to Prompt Purchase

Whether this was intended or not, the wait staff would often let you know that they were lucky enough to have had some Louisiana Redfish flown in, so it was available on tonight’s menu. The first time I heard this, I had no idea what Blackened Louisiana Redfish was, but I had a fear of missing out, and assumed it was good if it was flown in especially for the restaurant.

Beyond being a great tool to manage perishable stock movement, this is a great example of scarcity marketing. Of course, the food tasted delicious, but the FOMO and scarcity message from the waiter really drove my ordering decisions.

The framing of communications and messaging matters, and if you do have product or service elements that have a degree of being limited, are hard to obtain, scarcity marketing is a great tool to drive demand and establish high value. If you’re still unsure about the power of this, think about the purchasing frenzy associated with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and end of year stocktake sales.

Adopting Waiting Line Psychology

Year after year of visiting this place we always saw a dinner line for those who didn’t have a booking.  On the odd occasion when we were in the area unexpectedly, we had to wait in said line, and this small food venue operated with the skill and experience of a Disney theme park, because they made the experience of waiting memorable and interesting.

From the location of the queue-line that enabled a view into the restaurant’s festivities, to the appetiser tasters they would regularly bring out to those waiting (this is how we first tasted their Fried Chicken Salad with buttermilk dressing and then always added an appetiser to our meal), and even live Cajun music at times, the experience built anticipation – the oppositive of frustration.

This small business understood how to leverage anticipation & waiting line psychology – something that both e-commerce and in-person retailers can incorporate in their own businesses with a bit of thinking about.

Do your customers experience waiting lines – whether virtual or in-person?  In The Psychology of Waiting Lines paper by David Maister he identified the following eight propositions about how people experience waiting in lines.  These are useful as if you ‘re considering how to manage expectations and in fact turn what might be perceived as a negative, into a more favourable experience:

1. Occupied Time Feels Shorter Than Unoccupied Time.
2. People Want to Get Started.
3. Anxiety Makes Waits Seem Longer.
4. Uncertain Waits Are Longer than Known, Finite Waits
5. Unexplained Waits Are Longer than Explained Waits
6. Unfair Waits Are Longer than Equitable Waits
7. The More Valuable the Service, the Longer the Customer Will Wait
8. Solo Waits Feel Longer than Group Waits

Remembering that Customer Loyalty is a Path to Revenue

The customer-centric thinking of The Palace Grill was an absolute joy to be on the receiving-end of. They especially understood the later stages of The Buyer Journey Framework where potential customers engage to purchase (Support Stage), and then the after-purchase stage (the Loyalty & Advocacy Stage) when there’s an opportunity to cultivate retention as a brand supporter, share referrals and recommendations with others, and of course future repurchasing.

The restaurant utilised a ‘Locals Card’ – every regular customer received a laminated card that declared we were ‘Locals’ and I believe we mentioned it whenever we made a reservation. I have no idea how the level of treatment changed for us, as it looked like everyone enjoyed the warmth of the host, the engaged wait staff, and amazing food, but it created a sense of belonging. Although I don’t believe this program continues to run, I suspect it would have powerful impact on their social media channels if it was digitally activated and could be a great starting point for collecting first-party data on anyone who might return repeatedly.

As a marketer and a foodie, I miss the brand cohesion and the Chocolate Souffle with bourbon cream sauce at this restaurant, but I’m thankful to know that small businesses can deliver big things with just a few tactical marketing decisions.