A win-back email that opens with a discount is making a diagnosis, and usually the wrong one. It says: we assume you left because we were too expensive.
Most lapsed guests did not leave over price. They drifted. Something changed in their week, a new place opened nearer the office, they had one mediocre night and never consciously decided anything at all. Nobody sat down and evaluated your pricing.
The following examples are built on the opposite assumption — that the guest simply stopped thinking about you, and the job is to be specific enough to be remembered.
The thing that actually works
Specificity. Not warmth, not urgency, and not value — specificity.
A message that proves you know who they are outperforms a generic offer, because it does something an offer cannot: it makes the guest feel like a person you noticed rather than a row in a list. Which, at that moment, is exactly what they are worried they are.
The quiet regular
Someone with real history who has simply gone missing. This is the highest-value message you will send all quarter and it should not contain an offer at all.
Subject: The corner table is still there Hi Sofia, It has been a few months, and your name came up when we were putting together the autumn wine dinner list — you were on it before we had finished the sentence. It is 18 September, Burgundy, six growers, twenty-four seats. No pressure at all if the timing is wrong. And if you would just rather come in on a normal Tuesday, the corner table is still the corner table. — Marco
The lapsed occasion guest
Someone who only ever came for something — an anniversary, a birthday, the same week every year. The hook is the occasion, not the restaurant.
This one has a timing requirement that most groups get wrong: it should land three to four weeks before the date, not on it. On the day you are competing with everyone. Three weeks out you are the one who remembered.
Subject: September again Hi James, We have you down for the 14th — the last two years you have been in that week, and I would rather ask early than assume. Want me to hold something? Same table, if you would like it, and I will let the kitchen know it is the anniversary so they can do what they do. No obligation. Just did not want to leave it to chance. — Elena, Ember & Vine
The one who had a bad night
They complained, or they left a poor review, and then they never came back. Most groups never contact these guests again, which is a strange decision given they are the ones who told you exactly what to fix.
The message only works if you can name what went wrong and what you did about it. If you cannot do both, do not send it.
Subject: We fixed the thing you told us about Hi Daniel, You wrote to us in March about the gap between courses. You were right, and I did not want to just say so and leave it there. We changed how the pass is staffed on weekends. It is not a marketing line — it is two more people on Friday and Saturday. If you are willing to give us another go, ask for me and I will look after it myself. — Maria, GM
The one-time visitor
They came once, months ago, and never returned. You know almost nothing about them, so do not pretend otherwise — writing as though you remember someone you do not is worse than writing as a stranger.
Keep it short, give them a reason that is about the restaurant rather than about them, and accept a lower response rate. This is a volume message, not a personal one.
Subject: New menu, in case it is your kind of thing Hi Priya, You came in once in the spring, which either means we did not make much of an impression or life simply got in the way. Either way — the autumn menu went on last week and it is the best one we have run. If it sounds like your sort of evening, we would be glad to see you. — The team at Marigold
When a discount is actually right
There is a real case for it, and pretending otherwise is just posturing.
A discount makes sense when price genuinely is the barrier — a lunch crowd that stopped when you repositioned, a neighbourhood that has become more expensive than its residents. It also makes sense when you are filling a specific empty slot and the offer is the point: a Tuesday tasting at a Tuesday price.
What does not work is a discount as an apology for being forgotten. That is the reflex worth resisting.
- Price was the actual reason they stopped — you have evidence, not a hunch.
- You are filling a named, specific gap, not a general lull.
- The offer is interesting in itself: an early-week tasting, a producer dinner, a chef's counter seat.
- It goes to a small, well-chosen group rather than the whole list.
Sending these without a marketing team
Everything above assumes you can answer one question: who has gone quiet? For most groups that is the hard part, not the writing.
The answer is spread across your reservation platform, your POS, and possibly a spreadsheet somebody built in 2023. Assembling it by hand takes an afternoon and is out of date the following week, which is why most operators do it once and never again.
That specific problem — finding the guests worth writing to — is what Compliments OS exists to remove. The writing you can do yourself, and honestly you will do it better than we would.