Forget a swipe-right kind of relationship – today’s hospitality guests want a proper romance with your restaurant. In this article, you’ll discover what happens when good loyalty programmes go bad, and how AI is powering up data to create long-lasting partnerships with customers.
Because guests have changed – they want a love relationship with your business. The simple equation of “You make my food = I pay for it” just doesn’t add up to success anymore.
In other words, transactional has been blown away by experiential customer service.
What’s the difference between transactional and experiential?
You can compare it with someone seeking romance and long-term potential, rather than just a swipe right…and like any life relationship, that takes effort and commitment from you.
How offers can ruin your relationship
Good personalised loyalty programmes are solid gold. As one recent report on next generation dining says: “In a highly competitive hospitality environment, creating memorable guest experiences is the ultimate differentiator.”
– 29% Of consumers and
– 32% Of families will actively seek out discounts or offers for dining or drinking out.
But a badly-targeted offer can cost you money – or threaten the relationship you want to encourage – See Full Research
When loyalty goes wrong – an example:
You need to drive more business on a Monday, so you decide to send your customers an offer for big discounts. But if you haven’t fully worked out the economics, you’ll end up out of pocket.
Will the extra business cover the labour and supply costs? Even worse…might some of your high spenders simply change to a cheaper day to eat? Or – ouch – will you cause offence by offering, say, committed vegans a steak deal?
Experiential dining? It’s not dating, but data
You want your restaurant to be their One and Only, the ultimate in customer loyalty. Tailoring the experience to their exact requirements is the way to win their hearts, but you need to truly know what they want.
As New York restaurateur Danny Meyer says:
“Hospitality is present when something happens FOR you. It is absent when something happens TO you. Those two simple prepositions – for and to – express it all”.
You definitely want your guests to believe your service is FOR them, in the most individual of ways.
So, building a great experiential relationship is not exactly dating, but it is all about data – segmenting your market using technology-captured information that enables personalised, effective reward programmes and grows your business.
We know each other sooo well…
AI, working with specialised hospitality technology, is making incredible strides forward in capturing and analysing customer data to power up customer engagement.
“Artificial intelligence allows restaurants to go far beyond generic service, offering true personalization at scale. AI-driven systems can remember dietary restrictions, favorite dishes, preferred seating, and even special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. This data enables staff to offer tailored greetings, suggest relevant menu items, or seat returning guests at their usual table — all without extra training or manual entry. The result? A guest experience that feels effortless and genuine.” – AI Time Journal
Customers’ personal requirements are now really specific. High spenders might demand a special menu just for them, or exclusive events or dishes. Maybe they want you to understand without asking that they always prefer salad to chips.
Even in fast food the experiential approach pays off, with easy and responsive kiosk ordering – McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski cited AI adoption among his top three trends in 2025 for the quick service restaurant industry.
So that disastrous offer of steak to a vegan? With great data at your fingertips, that kind of slip is never going to happen. There’s going to be nothing to break up this growing relationship.
AI helps the human in the room
AI as a data-harvester and analyst is not an alternative for your restaurateur’s knowledge and expertise, but simply an enhancer and enabler. As EY comments:
“Technology should not be considered a replacement for human touchpoints but as an enabler for better human-led experiences… an AI-led customer experience will be far richer if it has a human element at the right time.”
Unprecedented opportunity
As hospitality technology experts, we can’t agree more with this. As our Chairman Luis De Souza says:
View Luis’ podcast on experiential dining and AI
