Heavy snowfall on 2/14 brought Houston back to the era of no electricity. With no water, no electricity, and no internet access, a text message, “We are open today,” was like the first light of the new year to solve an immediate need.

Before anyone could get over the tragic crash in Fort Worth last week, Houston was covered by snow; the temperature dropped below freeze point. On the night of February 14, just as everyone was excitedly looking forward to building snowmen the next day, the first wave of power outages had begun.

For the next few days, Houston was in a back-and-forth of power and water outages and internet outages. We helplessly watched our phones go dead and the room temperature dropped, and we waited for the lights to come back on. Many people go to the car or use gas to stay warm to withstand the cold, but accidents occur frequently. In such a situation, many families are unable to cook nor order for delivery, and even Uber shows NO CARS AVAILABLE. In the cold and hunger, we were all eager to have a hot meal as usual. Luckily, there were restaurants have stayed open!

“We are Open Today,” Lights up the Day

Google Trends

Under the safe condition, some of KwickPOS’ clients in Houston decided to open; after all, food is essential. Google Trends shows how people are anxious and scared about the food shortage.
Google Trends suggests the search interest for the keyword “restaurant open today,” in mid-February this year peaked, which is four times more than the same period last year.

The related terms are also under “Breakout,” which is mainly due to the surge in search volume.

Restaurant Text Marketing

Restaurant owners are more than ever aware of the cold and hunger that everyone is experiencing these days and what a hot meal means to the customers. But, how can the residents know about the re-opening? Especially with the power outage, many people don’t have internet access. The best way is to use text marketing for the mass notification; therefore, KwickPOS helped our clients sending the message, “We are open today!” Just when our clients worried about how their customers can get the food without delivery service, orders started flushing in. From which many were large orders, and some restaurants sold out all the food or had to close late. Below is a list of an overview of each restaurant’s daily sales up to the morning of 2/18. Due to geographic location and road conditions, the date of sending the text varies for each restaurant.

Shanghai Bistro
In terms of daily sales for the entire February so far, the restaurant’s sales were by far the highest on the 17th after sending the text, nearly 25% higher relative to Friday the 12th.

Golden China
Golden China is in a similar position to Shanghai Bistro, with daily sales now at least doubled after sending the message on the 17th so far.

Hot Wok Cypress
The restaurant sent the text on 16th that the sales were disastrous due to road conditions. However, the daily sales on 17th saw a sharp spike, successfully making up for the previous day.

Hot Wok Spring
On the 15th, after sending out the message on the coldest day, the daily sales became the highest so far that month, at least 60% higher. Though on the 16th, the sales were lower due to the road conditions, it was still on par with the average days.

T. Jin Asian Fusion
After sending out the message on the 16th, the daily sales were already the highest compared to the 1st to the 14th. The next day, the sales increased 50% due to the improved road conditions.

Jade Ly Asian Bistro
After sending out the SMS on the 17th, Jade Ly Asian Bistro took the highest sales in February.

Although the power outage has been only a few days, it has been such an excruciating time for us. KwickPOS is glad to help the restaurants and their customers in this difficult time. As restaurants are opening their doors, if you have not yet used the text feature, we will give you 500 free messages. It can help you with the re-opening or for immediate needs, especially to notify customers of temporary changes in business hours or place phone orders when the internet is down.

The disaster has caused a lot of damage to many restaurants, many of which are still without power, water, or internet access. KwickPOS would like to thank those restaurants that are open during the hazardous weather condition for continuing to serve food to residents, and we hope that those that are not open will be open soon. We are here to help in any way we can, so please feel free to call us at 888 355-6996. kwickPOS is here to help you start a new chapter in 2021!

Want to know more about restaurant text marketing? Just click the following links!

Text marketing case study

Text marketing feature introduction and performance analysis

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From being a newcomer to the industry, we have progressed every day with the support and partnership of KwickPOS.

In the course of working with nearly 1,000 restaurants and beauty salons, we have met and become friends with many like-minded people, one of which is Yokohamaya Japanese Restaurant, whose background and results of using text marketing and QR Code Reviews are presented below.

Client Background

Yokohamaya Japanese Restaurant is in Cypress, TX that provides delicious meals and take-out services to local residents. In addition to the popularity of the food itself, the quality service and friendly staff are also Yokohamaya’s specialties. In 2019, the restaurant switched to KwickPOS because the previous system had frequent issues without technical support and customer service since the owner just entered the industry and did not know what POS system was the right fit. KwickPOS stepped in to provide Yokohamaya with targeted feature development and business consultations. Since the partnership, Yokohamaya has experienced frustrations and setbacks (stagnant sales, management conflicts, pandemic, etc.) and has trusted us unconditionally to provide solutions to get out of the negative situation. The restaurant is now integrated with the text marketing and QR code review features at the end of 2020, generating remarkable results within a month.

December 2020 Requests

At the end of last year, Yokohamaya asked KwickPOS for advice on how to improve its performance as usual. The restaurant wanted to make a final push to break the sales record, so we provided Yokohamaya with the QR code review and text marketing features for free. With the two features and store promotions, the restaurant doubled its revenue for the month and reached a record high. This is an unprecedented figure for the restaurant.

5-star reviews

In the previous blog, we uncovered how Airi Poke & Raman turned around Google Map ratings with this feature. Yokohamaya took a similar approach, giving free appetizers to tables that left reviews. The five-star reviews increased by 171%, accounting for 94% of the total reviews, and the rest were distributed to four-star and three-star.

As shown in the chart, since the first use on 12/11/2020, the restaurant has received 53 five-star reviews in just a few weeks, almost 10 times the previous monthly rate. In contrast, from January to November, Yokohamaya received an average of only 5 five-star reviews monthly on Google Maps, for a total of 59 five-star reviews. Total reviews comparison: 69 from January to November vs. 57 in December.

As of today, Google Maps’ rating has increased from 4.7 to 4.8! Yokohamaya has presented its strong endorsement of the feature.

Text marketing breaks the plateau

Earlier, we introduced the effectiveness of the text marketing feature by other clients. Yokohamaya has also been using text marketing to win the battle along with QR Code Reviews. The restaurant texted a New Year’s Day business info to over 3,000 customers on 12/31/2020 morning, ultimately breaking daily and monthly sales records.

Yokohamaya achieved a 53% increase in sales compared to December 2019, which further illustrates both features’ returns.

Not only did turnover achieved a breakthrough on December 31, but the effect lasted until January 1, 2021. Relative to New Year’s Day in 2020, daily sales have increased by 94%, nearly twice as much.

3 months Free Trial of QR Code Reviews + 500 Free Text Messages!

Yokohamaya’s success is inseparable from the gradual accumulation and continuous learning. Many restaurants have similar experiences, looking for opportunities in the midst of anxiety and frustrations, which the persistence will eventually lead to harvest. You can also entitle the accomplishment, learning and advancing with technology every day!

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