How to Improve the Customer Experience in Your Restaurant

Customers are the lifeblood of your restaurant. The flow in and out is what keeps your business alive. But unlike the blood which lives in your veins permanently, permanently keeping those customers – and attracting new ones – is somewhat of an art mixed with a strategic science.

And it boils down to the holistic customer experience. This is how customers experience your food, service, staff, and venue. Ensuring that your customers have the best experience, every single time, is extremely important.

Here’s how to improve the customer experience in your restaurant.

1. Convenience Is King

We really hate talking about COVID – it’s come and gone and it’s in the past now. But what COVID did do is enhance the integration of online ordering, and engaging with businesses digitally. Diners got used to picking up the phone to get a meal from a restaurant, as opposed to hopping into the car and going there either to pick up takeaways or sit in the restaurant. So convenience became king.

And this expectation has remained – convenience, ease of ordering, and accuracy and speed of the delivery.

Don’t be fooled though – while it may seem like this takes a load off your shoulders, the customer experience remains as important as before. Just the channels of your customers’ experience have changed. Now you need to ensure that their experience on your business app is a good one. You have to communicate with them on social media, through your website, and on chat apps. 

It’s a whole new ballgame, and keeping your customers happy and returning, while making interacting with your restaurant super convenient, is a major priority – maybe with different strategies in place though that incorporate the online space.

2. Optimize Your First Impressions

First impressions count for a lot, and your customer’s first experience with your restaurant could make or break the relationship. 

Whether your patrons are coming to your venue for a sit-down meal and a few drinks, or picking up takeaways, staff must always be polite and friendly, and greet them with a welcoming smile. In fact, make them feel like celebrities! A customer that is made to feel special associates those positive emotions with your restaurant, and they’ll want to come back for more of that treatment. 

Try to personalize the experience as much as possible. If a customer has made a booking, be aware of your bookings and times, and try to greet them by name. This is obviously easier if they’re regulars, but greeting someone by name makes them feel seen and acknowledged. And this makes them happy customers. 

Then try to seat your customers immediately. People get edgy if they have to wait, especially if they’ve made a booking. If that’s not possible, then make the wait pleasant. Offer your diners a place at the bar where they will be under the care of your bartenders, and keep them informed of their seating status.

There’s nothing worse for a customer than being dumped somewhere and forgotten. This is almost instant grounds for a walk-out and a bad review. And bad reviews harm your business reputation.

3. Make the Entire Customer Journey Seamless

Your guest experience extends far beyond the time customers spend in your restaurant enjoying the food and interacting with your staff. It encompasses the entire journey, starting from their first interaction with your brand, continuing through every touchpoint, and resonating in every communication they receive.

To ensure a seamless experience, every aspect of your engagement—whether it’s your tone of voice, mobile app interface, self-serve kiosks, digital ordering, or online interactions—should prioritize creating a positive impression and maximizing guest satisfaction.

All your touchpoints should also be 100% aligned with your brand and communication style. This creates a familiar environment for your customers whenever they engage with your brand, and they feel comfortable in these ‘familiar surroundings’.

Kind of like how your chain stores all have similar layouts, so no matter which store a customer walks into, things are in the same place and they feel like they’re in a familiar environment. 

The less hassle your customers have to deal with, the better! That’s where tools like Perfect Venue’s software can simplify things for both your staff and your guests. By managing bookings, event schedules, and customer profiles, Perfect Venue can help you ensure that every touchpoint leaves a positive impression.

4. Make Employees 100% Part of the Team

Your team members are the true VIPs of your restaurant and hold the keys to increasing customer satisfaction. When your employees feel motivated and valued, they put in the effort and often go the extra mile to look after what become their customers, as they are as invested in the restaurant as the restaurant owner and manager. 

Creating a positive, supportive work environment goes a long way in making your staff feel appreciated and valued. Think of continuously uplifting and upskilling your staff. This lets them see that you are invested in them as you would like them to be in the restaurant. And it’s a win-win situation – better skills make for more capable employees, and that’s good for business.

This then leads to job satisfaction and employee retention. The food & beverage industry is known for high staff turnovers, and if you’re investing time, money, and training in your team, it can be a big loss across all three if they’re unhappy and leave the business.

It’s also important to listen to the team members. They are the ones who are at the frontline of customer interaction, and see the day-to-day processes in the restaurant. This makes their feedback invaluable as they can pinpoint issues, and can really help to level up your business operations, and consequently, your customer satisfaction. 

5. All Data Leads to Improvement

The multiple channels across which a customer experiences your restaurant and brand can be absolute gold when it comes to gathering data. 

The ordering process on an app contains data on a customer’s food and delivery preferences. Queries coming through on a website can offer information on regular questions customers may have that your FAQs could provide immediate answers to. 

And with immediacy being so important to customers, providing information instantly can really enhance the positive experience. Chatbots can also be valuable tools to bring immediate information to customers at the tip of their fingers. 

But having data and understanding it are two different things. When understood, data can provide information about ordering of food, the speed of service, order accuracy, and automatically request customer feedback. And knowledge is power, as they say, so you can use these insights to improve operations across your whole business.

That’s where customer experience (CX) platforms are incredibly helpful, collecting data, sorting it, and even pulling insights from it for you. You can then use these insights to feed into your customer retention strategy and take customer satisfaction to the next level.

6. Use the Tech Available to Personalize Offerings

There are loads of digital touchpoints across your customer journey that you can use to personalize your restaurant offerings, from apps and newsletters to social media platforms and direct messaging.

According to research company Experian, “79% of consumers said they are more likely to engage with a personalised offer, with 78% of customers stating that a personalised touch increases their likelihood of a purchase”. Your data really helps with this, and using the insights to tweak your communications with customers.

A cool tip is to build a small profile on returning customers. Become familiar with their orders, likes and dislikes, where they prefer to sit if they come into the restaurant, and birthdays and anniversaries. This really helps to create a holistically personalized experience and make guests feel extra special. 

7. Proactive and Highly Responsive Service

Looking after your customers well means you need to be proactive in communication and issue resolution and ensure they are always in the know when there is a pending query.

This is particularly important when there is a complaint – and it happens to the best of us. Something goes wrong – maybe there was a mistake with the order or a long wait. An item that a customer wants to order is sold out, or heaven forbid, your restaurant isn’t clean. These negative experiences are fodder for complaints.

In cases like these, it’s vital to stay calm. Make sure you are present in the moment, and really listen to your customer and what they are saying. Be attentive and show authentic interest in their concerns, and in finding a solution. 

And always, always remain professional. It’s easy to get frustrated and want to bark back at a customer when they’re angrily raising their voice at you. But as the old saying goes, anger begets anger. 

So keep your calm and professional ‘hat’ on and see a quick and effective solution. Offer a sincere apology, and recommendations if needed, and ensure your customer feels important enough to warrant your time and attention. 

And again, you can never have too much communication. Keep your customer informed on the process and where you are in resolving the issue. When customers are left in the dark, they feel like they’re being ignored, and that’s when the fingers find the complaints boards and social media platforms. And be assured, you won’t be getting positive reviews or customers referring their friends to your establishment.

Conclusion

To increase customer satisfaction, a restaurant manager really needs to always have their wits about them. Customers need constant attention, and restaurant managers need to continuously evolve their CX and retention strategies to ensure they are looking after their customers to the best of their ability.

Bring staff members to the party to be your eyes and ears on the ground, and help to feed in insights that can improve processes and ultimately improve the guest experience. Let tech support you and always be tech savvy so you’re tapping into data that can help you identify areas that need improvement. 

‍Perfect Venue is a smart and practical technology that will streamline all your restaurant operations. Try the 14-day free trial to see how it can manage many of your higher admin operations, or watch this cool demo to find out how you can free up some of your time to hone in on developing a great customer experience.