Under the epidemic situation, how to do a good job in refined operation and reduce the cost of open source for stores? What kind of underlying thinking does the restaurant owner need to have? Zou Tong, a columnist of the Red Meal Network, systematically sorted out and elaborated on this.
This article was originally published by Red Food Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Zou Tong.
The epidemic has made great changes in the thinking and operation mode of catering operations, and the rough operation is at the end of the road, and refined operation has become the trend of the times.
However, most catering operators' understanding of operations is still only superficial and does not have a systematic understanding. Many restaurant owners simply understand operation as marketing and drainage, followed by activities and communities, and the results are often ineffective.
What should be done in catering operations, especially refined operations? In today's article, I would like to systematically discuss "operations" with my catering colleagues, including:
What exactly does it mean to operate at the restaurant level?
What are the operational objectives of the brand/store?
What are the operational methods to achieve operational objectives?
What kind of underlying thinking does the restaurant owner need to have?
What is the essence of food and beverage operations?
Operation is the process by which a restaurant builds a system to achieve a goal and maintains the system to continue to function well.
The strategic goal of Michelle Ice City is to lead the way in low cost. In order to achieve this goal, it has built and operated a growth system, first with low-cost products, in exchange for a large number of customers, to achieve scale; with scale, and then improve their bargaining power at the raw material procurement end; with bargaining power, and then increase the optimization of the cost structure, and then reduce the price of products, further seize the market.
With this system built, Michelle Ice City only needs to maintain and update it day after day to achieve circular gains.
So, how do you build a system?
The book Beauty of Systems argues that a complete system consists of three elements: elements, links, goals, or functions. Therefore, to build a system is to link the goals and elements with links.
For example, the private domain operation system of LaoXiang Chicken aims to import traffic into the traffic pool of LaoXiang Chicken to achieve the stability of brand traffic retention and realization. The system elements include the public domain's traffic platform (Weibo, offline stores), conversion platforms (official accounts, Mini Programs) and traffic carrying platforms (enterprise WeChat and WeChat groups), with links to the new media team, the store managers and staff of offline stores, and the operators of the community.
After the system is built, the operation is around the purpose, grasp the elements, set the rules, and constantly optimize the overall structure and link relationship, so that the system can operate efficiently and benignly.
To do a good job in operation, catering operators must be clear about the core objectives of operation, disassemble all the elements contained in them, and then link these elements with personnel and reward mechanisms to serve the core objectives. So, what are the core objectives of the operation?
The five core objectives of operations
In food and beverage operations, the 5 most common goals include traffic acquisition, retention, activation, monetization, and self-propagation.
These five goals are implemented almost in the whole process of food and beverage operations. For example, a hot pot restaurant, selecting the core area, engaging in live broadcasting, and doing profit-making activities, is traffic acquisition; engaging in private domains, doing community and customer relationship maintenance, is traffic retention; doing various package activities and publicity, stimulating consumption, is activation and realization; through refined operation to reduce the "emotional distance", beyond the expected products and services to achieve the customer's old and new, is self-propagation.
On another level, these five goals are also a closed loop, but most restaurants do not complete this closed loop. For example, some Internet celebrity stores have exposed the brand through various marketing means and obtained traffic, but the products and services have not met customer expectations, and they cannot complete the retention, and after the heat fades, the business will plummet.
Why haven't many restaurants established this closed loop? Are they unaware of these goals? No, I think, it's that they don't have a grasp of how the system works.
Next, let's talk about the five operating methods to achieve our operational goals: channel operation, customer operation, community operation, event operation, and fission.
Five ways to achieve operational goals
1. Channel operation: Seek increments in traffic
Channel operation is the process of developing new channels, formulating new plans, and realizing the offline flow of product promotion, conversion and traffic.
For example, when offline traffic is discovered, a two-dimensional code and reward system are established for each contact point, at each contact point of ordering, dining, and dining, to guide customers to online mini programs, communities, and public accounts.
Of course, the specific gameplay of channel operation is not so simple, it has a systematic methodology:
Channel filtering and categorization. Different channels operate in different ways, some are suitable for drainage, some are suitable for establishing word of mouth, some are suitable for fission, and some are suitable for conversion.
For example, customers watching vibrato, live broadcasting, and today's headlines are for entertainment and entertainment, then these platforms are suitable for drainage and publicity; customers brush small red books and Douban, mainly for "planting grass", then these platforms are suitable for word of mouth; customers play WeChat for socializing, then WeChat is more suitable for restaurants to do customer maintenance and fission.
Disassemble competitors. Many catering operators often have no system and direction when operating new channels, and it is easy to operate with preferences and feelings, which is not only tired, but also not too effective.
I suggest that before operation, you must find the benchmarking competitors, it is best to do a good job, disassemble its channels, and conduct a detailed analysis of its positioning, content, model and profitability, so as to clarify the direction and avoid stepping on the pit.
Testing and iteration. After dismantling the channels of competitors, we can only have a preliminary idea of operation, and we cannot be regarded as exploring our own methods. Therefore, we must also test with the smallest cost, iterate the method, and constantly form a channel operation plan suitable for the restaurant. One of the best methods is A/B testing, first build different versions of the method into practice, see which works well, and then concentrate on iterating in this direction.
2. User operation: create a "repeat customer" for the store
When the customer develops to a certain extent, the catering operator must carry out refined operation of the customer to ensure customer loyalty and retention rate.
Customer segmentation management. Classifying the characteristics of customers' populations, interests and hobbies is so that the store can serve customers more accurately.
There are many ways to classify customers, and the simplest and most feasible way is to use the label function of enterprise WeChat to label the key sexual behaviors of customers. In this way, when restaurants want to convert and distribute new products, they can develop different forms of event posters, copywriting and speech techniques for labels, and distribute them in a targeted manner.
△Image source: Photo Network
Establish a customer growth system. Building a customer growth path such as a membership growth system, an honor growth system, a task growth system, etc., so that customers grow up in purchases and activities, can effectively improve customer activity.
For example, in the membership growth system, Starbucks divides members into three levels, namely silver star, jade star and gold star, the higher the level, the more attractive the rights and interests that can be enjoyed. To this end, many customers continue to repurchase and consume in order to improve the star rating.
Honor growth system, Luckin Coffee will issue some virtual medals such as coconut cloud alliance, guard green horse, Gu Ailing yyds, etc. according to the customer's repurchase data, these medals will make customers have a sense of honor, in order to collect these medals, many customers will continue to consume repurchase.
Silence customers will be active. "Silent customers" are customers who have not purchased for a long time, and such customers can easily be lost if the catering operator does not activate them.
Analyze the reasons for customer silence, understand why they are no longer consuming, whether the activities and packages are not attractive, whether the product price is too expensive, or the product does not meet their needs, find the reason and then prescribe the right medicine to stimulate consumption.
△Image source: Photo Network
3. Community operation: serve customers well in one-to-many places
With a certain number of customers, the catering operator has to find a way to serve it well. If we adopt the traditional offline service method, it is difficult for us to reach too many customers, so we must consider community operation.
Through the community, a few operators can serve thousands of customers. For example, the upper limit of a WeChat group is 500 people, and 6 groups is 3,000 people. How to do a good job in community operation?
Clarify the purpose of the community: Plan the type of community and the form of service with the purpose.
For example, the welfare group, the content is based on welfare and new discounts on new products, with benefits to attract customers, maintain community activities; hobby groups, it is often necessary to hold some activities that customers love, the main task of the operator in the group is to maintain a good atmosphere, so that customers have a good communication.
Organize community events: Use campaigns to stimulate customer engagement and conversion.
Luckin Coffee, Fellow Chicken, haidilao group every time they do activities, there are many people who respond and participate, and the conversion rate is quite high. This is because their activities are usually carried out in a "multi-form + gamification + concession + targeted" approach.
Multi-form is a variety of forms of activities, including grouping, seconds, discounts, boosts, red envelopes, lottery, etc.; gamification is to do activities by combining dice rolling, guessing songs, looking at pictures and guessing things, guessing riddles, question answers and other small games to make the activities more participatory; let profits be used to stimulate demand with discounts, vouchers, packages, new product offers, etc., bringing conversion; targeted is to set up different profit-making activities according to the operator group labels and community functions, distribute different copywrites and posters to stimulate the conversion rate.
△Image source: Photo Network
Community maintenance and management: Set up administrators to make the group grow steadily.
Community maintenance can use the dual group master system, setting up two group owners in the group, one person is responsible for pulling people and releasing messages, and one person is responsible for answering questions and activating the atmosphere. At the same time, you can also recruit some active customers as group administrators to jointly manage the daily life of the group, of course, to give the other party a certain reward.
4. Event operation: Make customers active
The operation of the activity can be disassembled into five parts, the goal, the budget, the form, the channel, and the review.
The goal is the result of the activity, and there are 5 kinds of general activity goals, brand exposure, traffic acquisition, active fans, stimulation conversion, customer relationship maintenance and word-of-mouth publicity. The channel is a place that bears the target user and the information that can be reached, such as the official account bears the brand's loyal users, and the information that can be reached is new product recommendation, discount information, etc.
The format is how the event should be held, whether it is PK, game, promotion, social participation, and so on. The budget is how much money is used for the activity; review, the process and results of the activity are summarized and synthesized, and a replicable method is extracted from it.
△Image source: Photo Network
These five elements influence and interact with each other.
Based on your goals, identify the activity channels. The goal is word-of-mouth publicity, Xiaohongshu is the first choice; the goal is brand exposure, douyin and Weibo are the best positions; the goal is to stimulate conversion, offline stores, public accounts, communities and enterprise WeChat are closer to conversion than other channels.
According to the channel, determine the form of activity. If the channel is a private domain, the form can only be package + gamification + welfare + holidays; the channel is a platform such as Douyin, and the form of activity can be short video or live broadcast.
Determine the size of the activity based on your budget. With a sufficient budget, you can jointly hold activities with big V and platforms to create a loud momentum; if you have a small budget, you can find local numbers and local big V to help expose.
Review activities and refine methods. After the catering operator finishes the activity, it must review, refine the experience, write it into a document, and turn it into a method for reference in the next activity.
5. Fission operation: let old customers bring more new customers
There are two forms of fission operation, one is word-of-mouth fission, and the other is social fission.
Word-of-mouth fission is the customer's initiative to recommend. The service beyond expectations allows Haidilao to not have to advertise, and is also recommended by everyone; the product packaging beyond expectations makes Luckin's coconut cloud coffee become the king of sales. If the brand operation wants to achieve more than expected, it can give customers inadvertent "benefits" in different links. For example, when customers buy products, they suddenly give certain coupons; when customers order takeaway, they can inadvertently put some small drinks and small fruits.
Social fission is a fission based on the WeChat social chain. If restaurant operators want to do a good job of social fission, there are two prerequisites: there is a group of active seed customers, and these customers are loyal fans of the brand, they have a certain influence, and they love to share. Only seed customers have the possibility of fission, only loyal and love to share fans will spread, and influence can infect more people and form snowball benefits.
Four operational thinking that caterers must have
After learning the five ways of operation, catering operators must also master four kinds of thinking in order to apply operational work to their daily work, which are: process thinking, refined thinking, leveraged thinking, and ecological thinking.
1. Process thinking: refine the process, find answers and ideas from the process
There is a process first, and then there is a plan. The so-called process thinking is to sort out all the processes and links of the operation process in advance, and then seek solutions from the process.
Sort out the process and find ideas. When we build a system without ideas, we can help us think by processing the goal and using a process-oriented way of thinking.
For example, to build a private system domain, you can sort out the entire process: drainage, retention, activation, monetization, and self-propagation. After combing through the process, the methods of each link are sorted out.
2. Refined thinking: Subdivide big problems into small actions that can be executed
Refined thinking refers to the dismantling of big problems into countless small details that can be executed, so that operators have a greater sense of control over the work and the execution is convenient.
For example, in the split of community operation, it is first necessary to sort out the SOPs of the whole process of community operation, including group positioning, content planning and personnel management.
Secondly, for the segmentation of the links, personnel management is subdivided into core customers, group trusts, ordinary members, and strong IP; content output is subdivided into content output, product output, value output, interactive content, etc.
Third, it is a detailed sorting out and arrangement of daily, weekly and monthly work. For example, set up what content the community operators regularly want to send, how to interact, and why they do so.
3. Leveraged thinking: Find the core fulcrum and leverage more traffic, profits and resources
The so-called leveraged thinking is to use the core point to pry more things and results. For example, community operations, first serve seed customers, create services and experiences that exceed expectations for them, and then leverage them to promote brands and products.
Keep up with the core metrics. For example, the restaurant turnover rate declines, the turnover rate is the core fulcrum, and this fulcrum can be leveraged by focusing on the strategy + subtraction strategy + cost reduction and efficiency increase; for example, the restaurant rarely produces repurchases, that improving the repurchase rate is the core fulcrum, and the restaurant can use the private domain + brand + membership method to pry the fulcrum.
Keep up with market changes. In order to stabilize the business, we can use this as the core fulcrum of the "private domain" to introduce customers from various channels into the "pool" and carry out refined operations.
Keep up with user needs. After the epidemic, a series of changes have taken place in customer needs, such as the untouchable eating environment, cost-effective products and services, etc., which can be used by catering operators as the core fulcrum to leverage customers' desire to buy.
4. Ecological thinking: self-built ecology, automatic operation, farewell to hands-on
The so-called ecological thinking is to build an ecological system to operate automatically, even if it encounters problems, it can be automatically adjusted, and say goodbye to personal efforts.
Ecological thinking will force catering operators to constantly think about how to install the wheels and turn them into carriages, and continue to run under the drive of external forces. Of course, this is very brain-intensive, but it is also a time-consuming process, but once successful, the benefits are unlimited.