The customer experience begins even before a person steps into your restaurant. Most people today conduct research before spending money on anything, whether it’s buying a product, a service, or going to a restaurant. Restaurants should look at customer satisfaction like a journey.
It starts with the way your business is represented online, how easy it is to contact you, how fast you respond and how well they are attended, how easy it is to make a reservation. It continues with their visit, the quality of the food and the service, the decoration, the location. And it doesn’t end the second they have stepped out of the premises.
To make your restaurant a place that brings happiness into your customers’ lives, and a truly profitable business, here are three simple things you can do before, during, and after they visit you.
1. Pay Attention to Customer’s Reviews
Most of your customers will use the internet to decide whether to come to your restaurant or not. So, the first step in the customer satisfaction journey is to capture their attention online. A good reputation is vital for most businesses but it’s especially impactful for restaurants. Even one review from a satisfied customer who’s good with words, can pique someone’s interest or even convince people that your restaurant is a good choice.
There is no better way to know how to keep your customers satisfied than to listen to their opinion about your business and establish a respectable relationship with them. To show your customers that you value their opinion you can use tools like restaurant reputation management software, which, as the name suggests, can help you build a positive image of your business. Using such tools, you can encourage people to tell you how they feel, monitor reviews, improve your reputation and your business.
Responding to both positive and negative reviews is a great way to build strong relationships with your customers and inspire loyalty.
2. Pay Attention to Each Point of Contact With Customers
- Online Presence
Your restaurant’s website and social media, as well as other apps where you are present, are most likely the first contact between you and most of your customers. Make sure that everything is up to date – your address, phone, business hours, and that your information is correct on each of them.
Your online presence is crucial for your reputation and it can help you not only attract new customers but also inspire old ones to come back. You need a well-designed website that represents your restaurant truthfully. It should look good and the visitor should be able to easily find any information they may need. Quality content-rich websites and social media can have a huge impact on the success of your restaurant.
- Reservation Management
Efficient reservation management is vital for a successful restaurant. When it comes to reservations there is simply no room for errors. Make sure that the entire team understands the protocol, to avoid mistakes. Nothing about the reservation – the date and time, the number of people, and any changes to the reservation, should ever be wrong. Never make your customers wait.
- Communication
The most important contact when it comes to restaurants is of course the customer’s communication with your staff once they are at the restaurant. Your team should be respectful, attentive, helpful, and pleasant. Etiquette is also important, regardless of the type of restaurant you are running. Make sure your entire team knows your rules about attending clients, serving food and beverages, etc.
3. Pay Attention to Your Employees
The quality of your employees’ work, their productiveness, creativity, attention, are crucial for customer satisfaction. And to have all of that, you must make sure that your employees are satisfied with their job. This will also help you avoid hiring new people all the time and having to train them all over again. Satisfied employees are dedicated to the business’s values, and they ensure effectiveness and success.
Conclusion
Customer satisfaction has always been important but now more than ever it can make or break a business. Consumers are getting more and more accustomed to transparent businesses that make their needs a priority, build personal relationships with their customers, have a superb online presence, and so on. These high expectations that grow rapidly in the digital era, have made things even more complicated for restaurants.
You must always put the customer at the center of your business model. If a visitor is satisfied, they are very likely to come back again. When it comes to restaurants, word-of-mouth marketing is crucial. Eating out is something that comes up a lot in peoples’ everyday conversations with their friends and families. So, leaving a good impression on your visitors can bring you even more customers.
