How Customer Insights Drive Taproom Success
It’s been a hot topic. How do I get new customers? How do I keep people coming back? Market forces of inflation, increased competition, and shifting drinking habits leave breweries in a tougher position than they’ve arguably ever withstood before. When making choices about the future of your business, the importance of data-driven decision making has never been greater.
Custom taproom data bridges the gap between anecdote and insights. While bartenders and front of house staff undoubtedly see the business closer than anyone, gathering customer feedback has always been a challenge. Understanding customer motivations can directly impact marketing decisions. For example, if you learn your customers are driven by events, you can strategically choose the when, what, and where an event can be promoted to reach the maximum number of guests. While a promotional post about the new beer release might be attracting some folks, it’s crucial to understand the specific market you serve even down to the day.
The question still remains, how do we find meaningful data on our customers’ preferences? Two providers solely focused on helping you bridge this gap are ConsumerPulse by Craft Beer Advisory Services and Secret Hopper.
ConsumerPulse offers real-time, tailored insights into consumer behavior and sentiment in the taproom. By tracking consumer feedback on a range of factors—including beverage variety, ambiance, service, and more—ConsumerPulse empowers breweries to understand their brand from the customer’s perspective as well as custom competitors chosen by an individual brewery. These insights can guide breweries in creating experiences that meet and exceed customer expectations, ultimately driving brand loyalty and standing out in the market.
Secret Hopper complements this by providing “secret shopping” experiences, where trained evaluators provide honest, unbiased feedback on the taproom experience. By focusing on the customer journey from arrival to departure, Secret Hopper helps breweries pinpoint areas for improvement, assess staff interactions, and measure overall satisfaction in real-world settings. The detailed reports enable breweries to fine-tune every part of their taproom experience, from service quality to beer presentation, creating a consistent, memorable, and more profitable experience that keeps customers coming back.
ConsumerPulse and Secret Hopper go hand in hand. ConsumerPulse provides you with real-time consumer insights platform tracking what your customers are saying about you, your competitors, and the industry overall. With these insights, Secret Hopper helps you hone in on how each team member contributes to the big picture by focusing on unique taproom visits. Our datasets break down 30+ touchpoints, enabling you and your team to create memorable and more profitable experiences.
For example, your ConsumerPulse dashboard might show that guests are excited about limited releases. But once they’re in the taproom, how well is your team educating them on these new beers? Are they encouraging these eager customers to take some home, knowing it may be quite some time until this beer is brewed again? Secret Hopper provides data to show how effectively each team member is implementing the strategies you’ve trained them in and expect in their interactions. ConsumerPulse then follows up with insights validating your efforts with real-world feedback.
On the flip side, by focusing on specific habits in the taproom experience, Secret Hopper can highlight areas to amplify the positive attributes on your ConsumerPulse dashboard. For instance, if your team consistently performs below industry benchmarks for staff performance, this knowledge allows you to target specific skills and provide training to elevate staff engagement. Secret Hopper pinpoints specific areas of opportunity, enabling you to coach your team and monitor individual performance across key service metrics.
Together, ConsumerPulse and Secret Hopper provide you with the opportunity to more effectively access and assess how your taproom is performing. By adding data to your toolkit, you can maximize unique aspects of the experience, continually monitor the quality of your taproom, and better understand your guests to keep them coming back and spending more.