A QR-triggered SMS system that turns first-time guests into regulars — and automatically wins back the ones who drift away, tracked all the way to the POS.
Most restaurant marketing dollars get spent chasing new faces. The guests who love your restaurant are quietly slipping away — and they're the cheapest to bring back.
Boosted social posts get buried in a feed. Delivery-app discounts train guests to shop on price, not loyalty. Text message cuts through in a way almost nothing else does — it lands in the one inbox people actually check, over and over, all day long — and pairs well with email to build a complete retention strategy.
98%
Read within minutes, not scrolled past.
~5%
Algorithms bury most posts before followers ever see them.
That's the case for retention marketing over constantly chasing new customers: it's far cheaper to bring back someone who already knows your restaurant than to convince a total stranger to try it. You don't need to outspend anyone on ads — you need to focus on the customers you already have, and reach them on the channel they actually pay attention to.
And the Check-In Loop is just the starting point. Once you've got guests opted in and engaged, that same channel can carry additional campaigns — weekly specials, event announcements, seasonal promotions, and more — so every text sent is working toward the same goal: getting guests back through the door. (Additional fees apply per campaign.)
Four touchpoints, starting the moment a guest sits down.
At first touch, the server mentions the QR table tent: "Scan this and check in — you'll get a free cookie on us."
QR code opens a mobile-friendly check-in form. Guest enters name + phone, agrees to SMS terms, taps submit.
Confirmation screen shows a redeemable offer (free cookie or similar) the server can honor right at the table.
That check-in timestamp becomes the guest's "last visit" marker — the trigger for everything below.
If a guest hasn't checked in again by these milestones, they get a message.
Goal: simple reminder, no discount needed yet. Just stay top of mind.
Goal: give them a real reason to come back before they forget about you entirely.
Goal: bigger incentive. At this point it's cheaper to win them back than to acquire a new guest.
Each stage only fires if the guest hasn't checked in again since the last message — a fresh check-in at any point resets the 30/60/90 clock. No one gets stacked with duplicate offers.
Every coupon code is unique to its stage, so redemption at checkout tells you exactly which stage of the funnel is working.
| Stage | Coupon Code | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| 30-day nudge | 30DAYCOUPON | Redemption rate here is low by design — it's a soft touch, not an offer. |
| 60-day offer | 60DAYCOUPON | Your first real signal on discount-driven win-back effectiveness. |
| 90-day win-back | 90DAYCOUPON | Tells you what it actually costs to reclaim a guest who's gone quiet. |
% of tables that scan and opt in — a server coaching metric as much as a marketing one.
% of 30/60/90-day guests who come back and redeem, segmented by coupon code.
Discount value ÷ redemptions at each stage — shows you where the real ROI lives.
One setup fee to get the cascade built and connected, then a flat monthly cost to keep it running.
| Item | Cost | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Setup Fee (one-time) | $799 |
Custom-coded QR check-in page (branding, copy, and design built for your restaurant), subdomain deployment & testing, Mailchimp contact tagging & 30/60/90-day automation build, coupon code configuration, staff training materials, kickoff walkthrough with your team, table tent design, and 2-sided full-color table tent printing on cardstock for 20 tables (scales with table count). |
| Platform Fee (monthly) | $80/mo |
Dedicated SMS phone number, carrier & messaging fees, check-in page hosting. |
| Maintenance / Retainer (monthly) | $399/mo |
Ongoing monitoring of check-in and redemption rates, message tuning, and monthly performance check-ins. |
| Total Monthly Cost | $479/mo |
Plus $799 one-time setup in month one. |
These figures are starting points, not fixed — swap them out per client based on volume, guest count, or bundling with an existing retainer.
The Check-In Loop's 30/60/90-day cascade is included in the monthly retainer. Extra campaigns beyond that — specials, promotions, event announcements — are billed separately, per campaign.
Tell us a bit about your restaurant or brewery and we'll walk you through getting the Check-In Loop running.