Do you know your customers?   Before you answer that, first we need to find out what the word customer means. Customer comes from the root “custom”.

According to Merriam-Webster’s definition, custom means:

a: habitual with an individual

b: long-established practice considered as unwritten law

c: repeated practice.

So for our purposes, a customer is someone who comes to your restaurant repeatedly; more than once.

(In contrast, a consumer is a buyer, not yet a customer.)

With this definition of customer behind us, do you know who your regular customers are?

In the old days, before credit cards and suburbia, restaurant proprietors knew the names of their many customers.  They would even know where their customers lived, their eating habits, their likes and dislikes, and maybe even their birthdays.

Today, when the typical restaurant proprietor is asked if he knows his customers, they would answer something like this “yeah, I can recognize their faces, but can’t put a name to them.” That typical restaurant probably is doing 1,000 to 3,000 credit card  transactions a month, and with all these transactions it may seem difficult to know who your customers are.

However, with the Internet, databases, e-mail and credit cards, we should know our customers better than we ever have. It just takes technology and effort.  So why does this matter?  It is imperative that you know your customers and know him well because your customer is the lifeblood of your restaurant. Your customer gives your restaurant value. Your customer is everything.