The Win-Back Playbook

Bring back the guests you already have with a simple monthly system: build the list, sort it, give a reason, send a short sequence and count who returns.

  • Free playbook
  • 9-minute read
  • PDF, 9 pages
  • Restaurants, lounges and bars

Your restaurant might not need more customers. It might just need the ones it already has to come back. Most restaurants serve someone once, then go straight back to Instagram looking for another stranger. I think that is backwards.

Here is the math I would do first. If 2,000 people have eaten at your restaurant, getting just 5% of them to come back is 100 customers, and you do not have to introduce yourself to any of them. The cheapest customer to capture is often the customer you already acquired. This is the simple system I would use to bring them back, every month.

Martins Udotai, co-founder and CEO of Dinesurf

What's inside

  1. Count the guests you already have before you chase new onesRead it below
  2. Step 1: Build the list of everyone who has eaten with youRead it below
  3. Step 2: Sort your past guests by how long it has been In the PDF
  4. Step 3: Give every group a real reason to come back In the PDF
  5. Step 4: Send three messages, not one In the PDF
  6. Messages you can copy In the PDF
  7. Step 5: Do the math, then count who comes back In the PDF
  8. Run it every month In the PDF

Count the guests you already have before you chase new ones

Every guest who has eaten with you already knows where you are, what your food tastes like and how your team made them feel. A stranger on Instagram knows none of that. Winning a stranger takes ads, content and luck. Winning back a past guest often takes one good message and a real reason to return.

Yet most restaurants never ask. The guest list sits in a booking book or a WhatsApp chat, and the people on it slowly forget you, not because they had a bad night, but because nobody invited them back. So before you spend more to reach new people, find out how many of your old customers you can bring back.

The system has five steps: build the list, sort it by how long it has been, give each group a reason to return, send a short sequence, and count who comes back. Then do it again next month.

Step 1: Build the list of everyone who has eaten with you

You cannot invite back guests you cannot reach. Gather every past guest into one list, with their permission to hear from you.

  1. Start with your bookings

    Every reservation has a name and a phone number, and usually an email. Go back as far as your records allow.

  2. Add direct orders and event tickets

    Anyone who ordered from your own website or bought a ticket to one of your events is a past guest too, often one you have never thanked.

  3. Bring in what is scattered

    Contacts in WhatsApp chats, an old spreadsheet, the guest book at the door, a list from a past event. Import them into the same list, so nobody lives in two places.

  4. Keep only the people who said yes

    Message only guests who agreed to hear from you, and make it easy to stop. A guest who never agreed and gets a promotion is not won back. They are annoyed.

  5. Clean it up

    Merge duplicates, fix names and numbers that are obviously wrong, and remove staff and test bookings. One guest, one profile.

  6. Write down the number

    However many past guests you have, that number is your starting point. Every target in this playbook comes from it.

The rest of the playbook is in the PDF

6 more parts, ready to print or keep on your phone:

  • Step 2: Sort your past guests by how long it has been
  • Step 3: Give every group a real reason to come back
  • Step 4: Send three messages, not one
  • Messages you can copy
  • Step 5: Do the math, then count who comes back
  • Run it every month

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Dinesurf

Run this playbook in Dinesurf

  • Every reservation, online order and event ticket creates or updates a guest profile in Guestbook, so your list of past guests builds itself. You can import the contacts you already have. See how
  • The Lapsed (90+ days) filter finds everyone who has not been back in three months, and each profile shows their last reservation, times visited and total spend.
  • Switch on the win-back email and it goes to guests last seen 90 to 120 days ago, checked every Monday. You can change the window.
  • Send weeks 1 and 2 as newsletters to a filtered group or a tag, and see the opens and clicks for each one.
  • Give returning guests somewhere to land: bookings on your own website and Instagram link, with a deposit for busy nights. See how
  • Create an event with ticket sales, so lapsed guests have a date to come back for. See how
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