Phil Romano, the founder of Fuddruckers, a hamburger chain, once owned a small, out-of-the-way Italian restaurant called Macaroni’s. He packed the place on Monday and Tuesday nights – a time when most restaurants struggle to keep their doors open. Here’s why. Apart from the obvious fact that Macaroni’s served good food, Romano had a gimmick based on the old Psych I principle. Random rewards beget regular behavior. In this case, the behavior was eating at Macaroni’s on an off night.
If you happened to be dining there on a randomly chosen Monday or Tuesday night, you and the other 200 or so customers received a letter instead of a bill at the end of the meal. The letter stated that because the Macaroni mission was to make people feel like guests, it seemed awkward to charge guests for having a good time. So, once each month on a Monday or Tuesday – and always unannounced – everyone would eat free.
Here’s what the stunt cost Romano. One night ‘comped’ out of 30 reduces his revenues by 3.3 percent. But he has a full house on eight nights a month when the place would normally be empty. And word-of-mouth testimonials are one of the most effective forms of advertising. In one fell swoop, Romano got a couple hundred tongues wagging, “You won’t believe what happened to us last night…!”
(T. Scott Gross, Positively Outrageous Service: New and Easy Ways to Win Customers for Life, Warner Books)
