# How to fill quiet hours: off-peak offers that bring customers in > Quiet hours cost you wages and rent whether customers come or not. A well-designed off-peak offer can fill them without training people to wait for discounts. Here's how to set one up. Published 26 October 2026 by Harry Northam, Founder, Promotello. Source: https://www.promotello.com/blog/how-to-fill-quiet-hours ## Key takeaways - Find your quiet hours from your till data or a week of tally marks, and pick one slot to work on first. - Good off-peak offers add something (a free side, a bonus treatment) rather than cutting prices across the board. - Run the offer only in the quiet window, and make the times impossible to miss. - Tell the people most likely to come: your followers and regulars, plus a poster in the window. - Give it four weeks, then compare the quiet hour with the weeks before. Every independent business has hours that drag: the mid-morning lull in a café, Tuesday afternoons at a barber, the hour before evening service in a restaurant. Your rent, staff and heating cost the same whether anyone walks in or not. An off-peak offer, sometimes called a quiet-hours or happy-hour offer, invites people in during exactly those times. Done well, it fills the gap without teaching customers to wait for a discount. ## How do you find your quiet hours? Start with what you already have: - **Your till or card machine** can usually show sales by hour and day. - **No data? Keep a tally** for a week: a mark on a sheet by the till for each customer, split into hourly columns. Look for slots where you're staffed and open but customer numbers drop sharply. Pick **one** to start with. Trying to fix every quiet hour at once makes it hard to tell what worked. ## What makes a good off-peak offer? A good off-peak offer is: - **Tied to the quiet window**: it only works at the times you want to fill. - **Generous but cheap for you**: it adds something that costs you little, rather than cutting your prices. - **Easy to understand at a glance**: "Free pastry with any coffee, Mon to Thu, 2 to 4pm." - **Aimed at people who are free then**: who could come at 3pm on a Tuesday? ## Off-peak offer ideas by business type **Cafés and bakeries** - Free pastry or cookie with any hot drink, mid-morning or mid-afternoon. - "Work from here" bundle: coffee, a refill and a snack for a set price before noon. **Barbers and hair salons** - Free beard trim or fringe tidy with any cut, early in the week. - Student or senior price on quieter weekday afternoons. **Pubs and restaurants** - Early-evening set menu before 6.30pm. - Free side or dessert with any main on Monday and Tuesday. **Independent shops** - A small gift with purchase on weekday mornings. - "Quiet hour" for customers who want unhurried, personal help. **Gyms, studios and classes** - Bring a friend free to the 11am class. - Off-peak memberships for daytime hours. ## Should you offer a discount or add something extra? Adding something is usually better. "20% off" changes how people value your normal price, and some will start waiting for the discount. "Free pastry with your coffee" feels like a treat and costs you only the pastry. A café sells coffee at £3.20. A pastry costs them about 60p to make. Offering a free pastry with any coffee from 2pm to 4pm costs 60p per customer and keeps the coffee at full price. Ten extra customers in that slot each day brings in £32 of coffee for £6 of pastries. ## How long should an off-peak offer run? Long enough for people to notice it and build a habit: at least **four weeks**. Give it an end date so it feels worth acting on, and renew it if it works. Changing your offer every few days confuses people. ## How do you tell customers about it? 1. **Your followers and loyalty members first.** They already like you and are most likely to come. 1. **A poster in the window and by the till**, with the days and times in large text. 1. **Social media the day before**, and on the day itself. 1. **Your staff.** Ask them to mention it to customers who visit at busy times: "If you're ever free mid-afternoon, there's a free pastry with your coffee." ## How do you know if it worked? Compare the number of customers in that slot over four weeks with the four weeks before. Also check: - **How many people used the offer**, and how many were new faces. - **Whether those customers came back** at other times. - **Whether busy times got quieter**, which would mean you've moved customers rather than found new ones. ## Common mistakes to avoid - **Vague times.** "Afternoons" leads to arguments at the till; "2 to 4pm, Mon to Thu" doesn't. - **Offers that cost too much.** If the offer costs more than the visit brings in, it's not filling a gap; it's losing money. - **Too many offers at once.** One clear offer beats five confusing ones. - **Not telling staff.** If the team doesn't know, customers won't either. Start with one quiet slot, one simple offer and four weeks. Then keep what works. ## Questions and answers ### Will an off-peak offer just move customers from busy times? Some will move, and that's still useful: it spreads the load and shortens queues at peak times. To win genuinely new visits, choose an offer that suits people who are free at that time, such as remote workers mid-morning or parents after the school run. ### Should I offer a discount or something extra? Usually something extra. A free pastry with a coffee or a free fringe trim feels generous and costs you little, while a percentage off trains customers to see your normal prices as too high. ### How do I tell customers about a quiet-hours offer? Start with people who already like you: your followers and loyalty members. Then add a poster in your window and by the till stating the days and times clearly, and post it on social media the day before. ### How long before I know if an off-peak offer is working? Give it about four weeks. The first week is often slow while people notice it. Compare the number of customers in that slot with the four weeks before you started.