What Technology Do Restaurants Need to Keep Customers Coming Back?

Repeat business is vital to the success of your restaurant. It's crucial that you have effective strategies to keep your customers coming back again and again.

Like any other part of your restaurant, you need to rely on technology to help you achieve the best results. With the right tools, you can generate reliable tactics to achieve more return visits.

We've assembled nine of the top tools you can use to keep diners coming back. Whether you're building your tech stack or need a finishing touch, the next tool for your business is here.

What keeps customers coming back to a restaurant?

To understand the role that technology plays in keeping customers returning to your restaurant, you need to know what drives diners to revisit venues. The key components are:

• High-quality food and drinks: Don't overlook the key factor that keeps customers returning to your business. Diners visit your venue to enjoy great food and drink. If you consistently provide it to them, they'll be encouraged to return.
  
  
• Great, friendly service: Visiting a restaurant is a social experience. Customers expect friendly service from your team. When they receive it in your venue, they'll be keen to come back to enjoy it again.
  
  
• Personalisation: You can really show your customers how important they are to you with personalisation. Adding a personal touch to a diner's experience can go a long way to incentivising them to come back.
  
  
• Special events: You should strive to offer a day-to-day experience that customers want to experience again and again. However, special events can also help you achieve repeat visits. Our Beyond the Booking report found that 42% of venue operators in the UK and Ireland plan to focus more on running special events in 2025.
  
  
• Features: According to DesignMyNight's 2025 Pubs and Bars Industry Statistics Report, some of the most appealing features for a venue are outside seating (according to 72% of respondents), a relaxed atmosphere (60%) and a good location (59%).

The role of technology is to accentuate these aspects of your business and give you ways to reinforce them in the mind of your customers.

What technology do I need to keep customers coming back to my restaurant?

Here are nine pieces of technology you can rely on to secure more repeat business in your venue:

1. Customer relationship management software

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a piece of technology that's designed to build relationships with your diners. Tools like Acteol offer the following benefits:

• Segmenting customers: Acteol allows you to segment your customers based on their data and behaviours. This allows you to categorise your customers and generate ideas to appeal to a broad base of diners.
  
  
• Customer profiles: Acteol brings your customer data together to create profiles in a single view. You'll get a better understanding of your diners and their behaviours. This makes it easier for you to discover how you can drive repeat business.
  
  
• Tracking customer behaviours: Track how your customers interact with your business over time. Understand visit patterns of your diners and better understand the overall customer journey. With Acteol, you have all the information to learn how diners behave long-term.
  
  
• Marketing campaigns: Level up your marketing strategies. With a more developed understanding of your customers, you can produce marketing materials that specifically address the reasons they enjoy your venue and what entices them to return.

With a comprehensive CRM tool, your restaurant is in the perfect position to draw your customers back again and again.

2. Table management software

A table management system plays a crucial role in achieving repeat business. Acteol integrates with ResDiary, allowing you to draw on your booking data when it comes to customer relationship management.

This is crucial additional data you can use to better understand your diners. With this integration, you can put the booking data you collect to the best possible use.

Table management systems help you keep customers coming back in other ways. By offering a seamless reservation experience, customers know they won't face friction when placing second and third reservations.

If you don’t offer a great booking experience, customers may not want to return, even if they had a great time in your venue. Systems like ResDiary also help streamline operations in your restaurant.

This leads to smoother services and less time spent on administrative tasks. You and your team can therefore spend more time on providing great customer service, which is a key driving factor enticing customers to return.

3. Restaurant loyalty software

Restaurant loyalty software is purpose-built technology to drive more repeat visits to your business. This technology involves offering rewards to your most loyal customers. This gives them an even stronger reason to return to your business time and again.

TalkBox by Impact Data makes it easy to offer relevant rewards and offers to your diners. It integrates with ResDiary, drawing on your booking data to better understand your customers and offer more relevant rewards.

TalkBox is automatically updated with your bookings and customer contact details. Looking at things like total visits, visit frequency and days since last visit, TalkBox can automatically segment your diners.

Then, you can generate relevant offers and rewards. When you use TalkBox alongside your marketing tools, you can find an easy and efficient way to share enticing offers with your customers. This is a powerful way to drive repeat business in your restaurant.

4. Email marketing software

Marketing isn't just about attracting new customers. Tools like email marketing software are vital for securing return visits.

With ResDiary's email marketing software, you're able to create branded emails with ease. You can then trigger emails to automatically send at certain times.

This includes booking confirmations, reminders and post-dining follow-ups. You can personalise your emails to help build your relationships with your diners.

This consistent flow of communication ensures you stay top-of-mind for your customers. When combined with Acteol, you can adapt your email communications to what resonates for different diners.

With a full understanding of your demographics, it's easier to create email marketing campaigns that get results. You can also use Wireless Social to offer Guest Wi-Fi and secure more email addresses from entire parties of customers.

ResDiary's email marketing solution synergises with a range of integrations to enhance your relationship with your diners. For more information, check out our complete email marketing guide.

5. SMS marketing software

Compound your marketing efforts with SMS marketing software. By having visibility in your customer's phone messages, you can ensure they think about your business more often.

ResDiary integrates with Silverstreet to manage your SMS marketing. It allows you to set up rules for your marketing efforts and then automatically send messages.

You can use Silverstreet to promote events or rewards or simply as booking reminders. It can also work with Acteol to communicate with your customers in a more personalised and tailored way.

For more information on how this channel can encourage more repeat business, check out our complete guide to SMS marketing.

6. Social media

Social media can be a great way to attract new business to your restaurant. It's also an overlooked way to build relationships with your customers.

If customers are making comments on your social media profile or making positive mentions of you elsewhere on social media, you should interact with them. Respond to your diners in a way that aligns with your restaurant brand.

This can increase positive associations with your restaurants, driving customers to revisit your venue. You can even take opportunities to highlight upcoming promotions and events.

Remaining active on your social media profile also helps to drive interest with customers who follow you.

To maximise what social media offers in generating repeat business, you can rely on ResDiary's Meta integration. This integration enables you to place booking widgets on your social media profiles.

This means that when customers decide they want to book with you again, they can do so in a frictionless way.

7. Efficient EPoS systems

Providing seamless service is vital to keep customers coming back to your business. Having great EPoS systems is therefore essential.

Great EPoS systems are highly reliable, allowing you to process transactions with ease. They should also have cloud functionality so your entire team can use and access data from these systems during service.

Some systems can go above and beyond when it comes to securing repeat business. For example, Access EPoS integrates with ResDiary, allowing you to take advantage of two-way data flow. Access EPoS allows you to collect customer spend data, providing information you can share with tools like Acteol.

This data is crucial for your customer relationship management and marketing efforts. It allows you to tailor your communication, promotions and rewards to secure more return visits.

You can also analyse this spend data within ResDiary's restaurant analytics suite. This enables you to glean valuable insights from this data, levelling up your efforts to achieve repeat business.

8. Event management software

Events give your diners a great reason to revisit your business. They can be the perfect "hook" to use when encouraging customers to return to your venue.

Event management software is crucial to help you host events in a seamless way. ResDiary's event management solution allows you to easily accept bookings for your events.

ResDiary allows you to create promotions for your events like set menus. You can use a dedicated widget to take bookings for your event. ResDiary also enables you to take pre-orders and deposits for events.

Through integrations like Acteol, you can analyse which of your customers will be most interested in various events. This helps you choose what to host and who to reach out to.

ResDiary also integrates with DesignMyNight to help you promote events. With up to 3.9 million monthly users, it's the perfect way to gain greater visibility. You can use ResDiary's DesignMyNight integration to accept reservations through your DesignMyNight page.

Need tickets for your event? Tonic Ticketing is another integrated solution with advanced features to manage your tickets. It even has a mobile app for easy ticket scanning.

Through ResDiary and an array of integrations, you have everything you need to become known for outstanding regular events. This is a great way to keep customers engaged in your business.

9. Mobile ordering technology

At-table ordering is a popular feature of many restaurants. With this technology, customers get to conveniently place orders using their mobile phone without needing to speak with staff. Plus, you and your team can save time on taking these orders and focus on other tasks.

You can implement mobile ordering in your business through QikServe. QikServe is a reliable and convenient solution for your business, with a range of payment options and easy menu management.

Add mobile ordering to your business to offer more choice for your customers. This might be just the thing that encourages them to visit again.

Achieve more repeat business with ResDiary

There's a wide array of technology you can use to get more diners to revisit your venue. ResDiary is a key piece of your tech stack to help you achieve repeat business.

ResDiary offers seamless booking journeys, so customers know they can secure a reservation without friction. We also offer an impressive number of valuable integrations, from smooth EPoS systems to valuable marketing tools.

Through ResDiary's Acteol integration, you can monitor your relationship with your customers and learn more about why they visit your venue. This in-depth understanding is vital to bring diners back again and again.

Book a demo today and find out how we can elevate your business.