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Success story: Lavang Sheffield
How Lavang Sheffield uses automation to drive repeat visits and save time
Independent restaurant transforms manual marketing into always-on customer engagement with Acteol Evo SE.
Key outcomes:
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Automated campaigns running in the background
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Smarter, data-driven customer targeting
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Connected systems for a single customer view
Campaign snapshot
The Challenge
- Manual marketing
- Fragmented data
- No easy way to engage customers consistently
The Approach
- Automating the customer lifecycle
- Unifying data with ResDiary
- Scaling targeted campaigns
The Impact
- Always-on customer engagement
- More time to focus on the business
- Smarter, data-driven marketing
Background
Lavang Sheffield is an independent hospitality business, delivering premium dining and bespoke event experiences since 2017. Originally founded by three partners, the restaurant has built a strong reputation for high-quality, personalised guest experiences and a loyal local customer base.
Following a change in the business, co-founder Azmol Ali (AJ) took on a broader role across both back-of-house operations and front-of-house responsibilities. This shift meant balancing administrative tasks with being present on the restaurant floor, spending more time with guests and supporting the day-to-day running of the venue.
With increasing demands on his time, it quickly became clear that manual processes - particularly around marketing - were no longer sustainable. To maintain service standards while freeing up time to focus on customers, Lavang needed a more efficient, automated approach.
“We needed to find a solution that could automate things – something I could set up and know it’s running in the background without me worrying about it. Before that, everything was manual, and it just wasn’t sustainable.”
The Challenge
As AJ took on more responsibility across both front-of-house and back-of-house operations, time became increasingly limited. This made it harder to manage marketing alongside the day-to-day running of the restaurant.
At the same time, Lavang’s marketing processes struggled to keep pace. Customer data was fragmented across multiple systems:
- Booking data in ResDiary
- Website data via Wix
- Marketing activity managed manually
Campaign execution was time-intensive and repetitive, with each campaign needing to be built from scratch.
“Marketing was just me jumping on the website, getting the data, creating the emails and finding the people I wanted to send it to - it was a lot of things that shouldn’t take that long.”
“You have to build everything yourself every time…there’s so many steps.”
This resulted in:
- Inefficient, time-consuming campaign creation
- Limited segmentation and targeting
- Inconsistent customer engagement
- Little visibility into performance
At the same time, with a growing database and increasing competition, retaining customers and driving repeat visits became a key priority.
“Customer loyalty is extremely important…it’s about getting the right information in front of them at the right time.”
Lavang needed a more efficient, scalable approach – one that would:
- Centralise customer data
- Automate marketing activity
- Enable smarter, more targeted engagement
- Reduce time spent on manual processes
The Approach
To overcome these challenges, Lavang partnered with The Access Group - implementing Acteol Evo SE to centralise customer data, automate marketing activity, and enable more targeted engagement.
The goal was clear: create a data-driven, automated marketing engine that runs in the background.
Unifying customer data
By integrating Acteol Evo SE with ResDiary, Lavang brought together previously disconnected customer data into a single platform.
This enabled:
- A unified view of customer behaviour
- Automated segmentation based on bookings
- Trigger-based marketing activity
- More personalised communication
The integration removed duplication and simplified workflows, laying the foundation for automation.
Automating the customer lifecycle
AJ quickly implemented a range of automated journeys designed to engage customers at every stage, including:
- Welcome journeys for new customers
- Birthday campaigns
- Lapsed customer reactivation (1-4 months)
- Loyalty and frequency-based journeys (loyal, frequent, occasional)
- Seasonal and event-driven campaigns
These journeys now run continuously in the background, ensuring consistent engagement without ongoing manual effort.
“We needed something where I don’t have to worry about it…I know it’s just going to run in the background.”
Scaling campaigns and promotions
With automation in place, Lavang is now able to plan and execute a wide range of campaigns more efficiently, including:
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Sunday Club promotions
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2-for-1 offers
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Takeaway and loyalty club campaigns
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Seasonal campaigns (Christmas, Mother’s Day, Easter, Bank Holidays)
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Weather-triggered campaigns, such as the Summer Spritz promotion
Campaigns can be planned in advance, reused, and tailored to specific customer segments.
“I’ve got half the year planned…now I just let it do its thing.”
Supported onboarding and ongoing optimisation
While implementing a new system initially required time and effort, ongoing support and a hands-on approach enabled AJ to quickly build confidence and capability.
“The team sent really clear step-by-step instructions - it made it much easier.”
By starting with simpler campaigns and gradually adding more advanced automation, Lavang was able to scale its marketing activity over time.
Evolving with a connected platform
Building on this foundation, Lavang has recently introduced Wireless Social to further enhance its customer engagement strategy.
By capturing more guest data directly in-venue, this will help:
- Grow the customer database
- Deliver more targeted campaigns
- Gain deeper insights into customer behaviour
“It’s about database growth, promotions, insights - and turning that data into loyal customers.”
The Impact
Always-on customer engagement
Lavang now delivers consistent communication across the full customer lifecycle, with automated journeys running in the background.
“Lapsed customers, birthdays, welcome emails…I know they’re taken care of.”
Reduced manual effort and more time for the business
Automation has removed the need to manually build campaigns each time, freeing up time to focus on running the business and engaging with guests.
“I don’t have to do one job ten times anymore - I just do it once.”
“I can focus on other aspects of the business - it’s just happening in the background.”
More effective, targeted marketing
Campaigns are now tailored to customer behaviour and timing, replacing a previous ‘scattergun’ approach with more relevant communication.
“Before it was finger in the air…now it’s about getting the right information in front of the right people.”
Clear visibility of what’s working
Lavang can easily see how campaigns are performing and how customers are engaging - both digitally and in-venue.
“We know it’s working - people come in and use the offers from the emails.”
A connected, scalable marketing approach
By bringing customer data and marketing into one connected system, Lavang now has a strong foundation to grow, scale and evolve its strategy.
“I just have to do it once and it feeds everywhere else.”
Connected Customer Engagement Solutions
- Acteol Evo SE
Marketing automation that enables targeted campaigns and always-on customer engagement.
- ResDiary
Booking data integration that powers segmentation and personalised marketing.
- Wireless Social
Guest Wi-Fi solution recently implemented to support database growth and deeper customer insights.
Ready to take the manual work out of your marketing?
Discover how Acteol Evo SE can help you automate campaigns, engage customers, and drive repeat visits.