Apps & Technology 8 min read
How to Get App Store Ratings for Your Café App
Star ratings decide whether a curious local installs your app. Here's the compliant way to ask, when to trigger it, and what to do about a one-star review.
Tag
Posts tagged “customer retention”
25 posts
Marketing 6 min read
How Much Should a Café Spend on Marketing?
How much a café should spend on marketing, what to spend it on, and why the cheapest 'marketing' is often keeping the customers you already have.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
What's a Good Repeat Customer Rate for a Coffee Shop?
The metric that predicts a café's survival better than foot traffic — how to measure it, what's normal, and how to move it.
Marketing 7 min read
Is Square Marketing Worth It for a Café? Cost & Alternatives
Square Marketing is convenient because it sits on your Square customer data. Here's the honest cost breakdown and where cheaper, higher-reach channels beat it.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
Should Your Café's Loyalty Points Expire? The Honest Math
Point expiration feels responsible, but for most independent cafés it works against the repeat visits your program exists to create. Here's the honest trade-off.
Loyalty & Retention 8 min read
How to Build a Tiered VIP Loyalty Program for a Café
A practical guide to designing a two- or three-tier VIP loyalty program for a café — thresholds, perks, margin math, and what Square can and can't do.
Guides 8 min read
Does My Coffee Shop Need a Mobile App? An Honest Answer
Not every café needs an app. Here's the honest test — regulars, rush, and repeat volume — plus realistic adoption numbers before you spend a dollar.
Marketing 7 min read
A2P 10DLC: How US Cafés Register to Text Customers
If your café texts customers from a 10-digit number in the US, carriers require A2P 10DLC registration. A plain-English guide to brands, campaigns, and fees.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
Gift Cards vs. Loyalty: Which Drives More Café Visits?
Gift cards and loyalty solve different retention problems. Here's what each actually does for repeat café visits, what they cost, and why most cafés should run both.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 6 min read
How to Recover Abandoned Online Orders at Your Café
Roughly two-thirds of food carts are abandoned. A practical playbook for recovering those lost café orders with Square Marketing, faster checkout, and push.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
How to Set Your Cafe's Loyalty Earn Rate & Rewards
The math behind 'buy 9, get the 10th free' — how to pick an earn rate and reward that drives repeat visits without quietly eating your margin.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
Punch Card vs Points: Which Café Loyalty Program Wins?
An honest comparison of the two loyalty models for cafés, the research behind each, and how to run whichever you choose on Square.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
How to Run a Refer-a-Friend Program for Your Café
Turn your regulars into a referral engine: how to structure rewards, protect your margin, and actually track who referred whom on Square.
Loyalty & Retention 9 min read
How to Win Back Lapsed Café Customers (Without Discounting to Death)
Define lapsed correctly, target the right guests, and bring them back with a message that protects margin — not a blanket 50%-off blast.
Loyalty & Retention 9 min read
Apple Wallet Loyalty Cards for Coffee Shops: A Guide
Digital stamp cards in Apple Wallet feel modern and cost little — but the wallet owns the customer surface. Here's the honest trade-off.
Marketing 6 min read
How to Get More Google Reviews for Your Café
More recent, higher-rated Google reviews lift your local ranking and win the click. Here's a repeatable, no-incentive system to earn them — and how mobile ordering makes the ask automatic.
Guides 7 min read
How to Calculate the ROI of a Branded Restaurant App
Stop guessing. Here's the exact math to decide whether a $99/month branded app earns its keep at your café — break-even, payback, and the levers that move it.
Loyalty & Retention 8 min read
How Much Does a Coffee Shop Loyalty Program Cost?
Punch cards, Square Loyalty, standalone loyalty apps, or loyalty bundled into a branded app — here's what each actually costs and when it pays for itself.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
Email vs SMS vs Push: How Cafés Should Reach Customers
Email is cheap, SMS gets read, push is free once you have an app. Here's how the three customer-messaging channels actually compare for a café — and how to use them together.
Loyalty & Retention 6 min read
Customer Lifetime Value for Coffee Shops, Explained
A plain-language guide to customer lifetime value for cafés — the simple formula, a worked example, and what it changes about how you spend on marketing.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Set Up a Coffee Subscription or Membership on Square
Recurring revenue for a café, explained: how to price and launch a coffee subscription or membership on Square without the math working against you.
Guides 7 min read
How to Get Customers to Download Your Restaurant App
Building the app is the easy part. Here's the operator-grade playbook for actually getting your regulars to download it and order ahead.
Customer Retention 7 min read
Push Notifications for Cafés: How to Bring Customers Back
A grounded guide to using push notifications to bring café customers back — how they compare to email and SMS, what to send, and what they require to run.
Guides 7 min read
How to Sell eGift Cards for Your Café on Square
What it actually costs to sell Square eGift cards, how to set them up, and how to use them as a low-cost engine for prepaid revenue and repeat visits.
Loyalty & Retention 11 min read
Square Loyalty for Cafés: Turn First-Timers into Regulars
An operator-grade guide to designing a Square Loyalty program for a café — earn rates, reward thresholds, what it costs, and how a branded app amplifies it.