Just as a King is no one without his loyal subjects, a restaurant is nothing without its loyal customers. A completely immersive experience that guarantees the utmost customer satisfaction is the only way to earn the loyalty of your customers.
Here are 9 foolproof ways that will ensure that customers leave your restaurant with a smile and an intention to visit you again.
Why Is Customer Service Valuable?
Most customers want to feel valued when they enter a restaurant. This can be achieved with a pleasant and understanding staff that helps the customers to find their perfect meal.
The standard of your customer service has a direct effect on your revenue. Research shows that 25% increase in profit can be achieved with just a minor increase of 5% in customer retention. To add the cherry on top, repeat customers are proven to spend 67% more than new customers.
Extending top-notch customer service is an absolute way of capitalising on profits through customer retention.
Why Customer Satisfaction Matters The Most?
The commercial food industry runs on meager margins. To survive and thrive sustainably, the volume of your customers counts.
Providing high-quality services from the first visit will compel customers to keep coming back.
Not just that, individuals and families impressed by your services are bound to bring in more footfall in the form of friends and extended family members. By providing outstanding services, you naturally save on unnecessary marketing costs by turning your regular customers into goodwill ambassadors of your restaurant.
Here are the things to practice to improve customer satisfaction:
1. Offer Outdoor Waiting
The average customer does not like to wait any more than 14 minutes, especially when they’re hungry. An outdoor waiting space makes it worth their time and makes them choose your restaurant over others. With delightful aesthetics, you can turn this space into a photogenic space so that families willingly spend more time clicking photos, thus, turning their visit into a
memorable experience.
2. Maintain A Fixed Menu
Just as too many cooks spoil the broth, far too many dishes spoil the taste of your food.
Having a fixed amount of dishes allows your cooks to master them over time, which will result in your dishes becoming popular. Popular dishes bring in loyal repeat customers and help create a brand identity for your restaurant.
3. Adapt To The Seasons
In tandem with the changing colors of the skies and flowers, people’s food preferences change too. Offer dishes that include season specific fruits and vegetables as a tasty and convenient alternative to other dishes.
Never forget to capitalise on the festive season. Offering Festival Inspired Bulk Options are major winners as they cost comparatively less to you and sell at a higher price, thus making room for you to offer discounts.
4. Always Ask For Feedback
Asking for feedback improves customer satisfaction by making your customers feel valued. Such genuine feedback also provides you with insightful solutions that work impactfully towards enhancing the overall vibe of your restaurant.
Valuing a customer’s feedback makes them feel empowered, which makes them return to you later if not sooner.
5. Possess An Integrated Payments System
Ending a great meal by fiddling through cash and associated hiccups is a major buzz-kill. Offering multiple cashless payment options intensifies the experience that your food offers. It is the “cherry on top” that adds another feather in your hat. People come to dine at restaurants to enjoy their meal in isolation or with their company to the fullest. An Integrated Payments System makes it possible for your customers to enjoy your meal a whole lot longer.
6. Take Orders Online -That’s Where The World Is
With even grocery shopping and car purchases going online, it only makes utmost sense to accept bookings online. You don’t want your customers to travel over a long distance just to return disappointed due to the unavailability of tables. It reflects poorly on your restaurant’s credibility.
Using a Digital System also brings down human errors which often lead to conflicts and poor customer service.
Hubspot found that 95% of restaurateurs agree that technology improves business efficiency. Do you even need another reason?
7. A Takeout Menu Is A Must
Food Delivery Apps like Zomato, Swiggy, and many more have revolutionised the commercial food industry and have successfully proved that online food delivery is a promising growth opportunity. You can hop onto this bandwagon without having a website, you just need to integrate a Cloud POS system, and you can start processing orders directly at the register. This also creates an opportunity for you to ask for reviews on each delivery and improve your online presence.
8. Light It Up, Right It Up
According to a study by White Hutchinson, 91% of dining patrons consider the ambience while deciding on where to dine. The lighting Of your restaurant sets the vibe for your customers. Make sure the lighting you install evokes the vibe you want your restaurant to be known for. Keep it mellow if you’re aiming for a romantic feel, go all out if you want to be known for your upbeat vibes.
For the menu to be readable, the light should not be more than 3 times brighter than the surrounding surfaces and no more brighter than 10 times the walls and floors in the surrounding.
9. The Secret To Success? Salad!
Most customers feel guilty for gorging on tasty food too often. Do you know what takes that guilt away? Healthy Food.
A Salad Bar or Salad Counter not only adds to the variety of the food you offer, but also expands the nature of the audience your restaurant receives. The way you present the salad also says a lot about your business and your staff. Make sure you buy best salad counters in Mumbai or any other city to ensure quality of material, and elegance of presentation.
Salad Counters also allow you to present seasonal fruits and salads, making your restaurant the talk of the town.
Make sure you adhere to these guidelines and serve your customers to the best of your capabilities.
