The restaurant industry can be brutal, with customers permanently writing off establishments because of one bad customer experience. To consumers, how they’re treated can often be as important as the quality and cost of the food.
It’s for this reason that restaurant customer service training is so important. Without proper training, wayward employees could unintentionally turn away lifetime customers.
To fully understand the effects of customer service and customer service training, let’s examine the benefits and ways for you to improve your customer service experience.
What Is Restaurant Customer Service Training?
Customer service is defined as the assistance a service professional provides to customers. In the restaurant industry, customer service takes the form of hosting, table service, counter service, and the like.
Before restaurant employees join a restaurant team, they undergo restaurant customer service training. This training covers how to provide excellent customer service that helps and engages customers, and increases revenue.
In a more informal setting, restaurant managers might forego dedicated restaurant customer service training and allow employees free reign. For seasoned professionals, this isn’t an issue.
However, if you’re running a fine dining restaurant or hope to establish your brand beyond local clientele, investing in restaurant customer service training is a necessary step to achieve this growth.
Why Is Restaurant Customer Service Training Important?
Why is exceptional service so important in the restaurant industry? Is it worth spending money on? How could it benefit your restaurant business?
Let’s examine how exceptional customer service can change your restaurant business for the better.
More Consistent Service
Without restaurant customer service training, restaurant employees have to rely on their ideas of customer service. Again, this isn’t always a bad thing. Many wait staff and restaurant employees understand how to be good with customers.
But this provides no consistency and guidance. There is also always the chance that a few employees don’t understand the basics of good customer service. Even a few bad apples can seriously affect your restaurant’s reputation.
By providing restaurant customer service training, you ensure all employees are on the same page, and providing exceptional service, all the time – providing a consistent and reliable experience customers will love.
Higher Customer Satisfaction
Speaking of what customers love: a Harvard Business review found that restaurants with a one-star rating increase on Yelp see an increase of 5 to 9 percent in revenue. Considering “service” is the most used keyword in restaurant reviews, it becomes clear that exceptional customer service is very, very important to restaurant goers.
Customer service training can help you achieve this gold star rating in customer service. And the better the guest service experience, the higher the customer satisfaction.
Better Branding
With such a focus on customer service, it’s no wonder that restaurants with better customer service are branded as better.
Whether you’re a local restaurant looking for more clientele or a restaurant hoping to become a franchise, reputation matters. Your branding matters. Even if your food is good, bad customer service could turn away many potential customers.
Customer service training puts you in control of your restaurant image, specifically customer service. If you’re providing good food and great service, you’re set for success.
Increased Customer Retention
The restaurant industry is fierce, with hundreds, if not thousands of options to choose from even in small cities. The majority of the restaurants in your area probably provide good food and competitive pricing, which makes it hard to stand out.
One surefire way to improve customer acquisition and retention is through restaurant service training. If the food and prices are good, and the customer service is top-tier, customers are far more likely to visit your restaurant again.
It’s also a well-known marketing fact that customer retention is much cheaper than customer acquisitions. One returning customer is worth a handful of acquisitions because you have to pay to gain those acquisitions – usually through marketing.
But a customer who had a good experience with your staff members and establishment will come back on their own, improving your sales and lowering your customer acquisition costs at no expense to you.
Increased Revenue
The guest experience with your restaurant and staff members is directly linked to your restaurant sales. When your restaurant consistently provides good service, it’s only natural the revenue increases alongside customer satisfaction.
When you provide good service, customers will spend more. They’ll visit your restaurant more often. They’re also more likely to share their positive experience with friends and family and online review sites.
And, when these people visit your restaurant and experience the same positive customer service, they’ll continue to laud your restaurant, creating a positive marketing feedback loop that increases your revenue.
Excellent Customer Service Tips
Now that you know why customer service training is so important, here are the top tips to help you create the best restaurant training program and customer service experience.
Decide What Type of Customer Service You Want
For as many types of restaurants as there are to enjoy, there are also different types of customer service – specifically, how your restaurant staff interacts with customers. Some restaurants prefer a chatty and animated customer service style while others prefer more reserved customer service.
All this depends on your unique restaurant needs. To keep your customer service consistent and provide comprehensive restaurant training, decide what type of customer service you want to provide and let that guide your restaurant training.
Provide Communication Guidelines
When you’ve decided what type of customer service you want to provide, create communication guidelines for your employees. These guidelines should provide a basic customer interaction structure with examples of what you expect staff to say.
The guidelines should also include how staff are to deal with difficult customers. This way you can control the narrative and customer service style in your restaurant.
As a side note: expecting employees to memorize the guidelines down to the letter is unreasonable. Instead, it should be used as a guide and not a script which they can’t deviate from.
Practice Seating Guests
How customers are seated can affect how customers feel about your restaurant. It’s their first true interaction with your employees. So, go over the basic seating measures you’d like employees to follow.
Should employees ask guests where they want to sit? Should they seat them according to the party size? Should they interact while guiding the guests? Consider the finer details and have employees practice seating guests as part of your training programs.
Know the Menu & Food Ingredients
To decrease wait times and increase customer satisfaction, employees should know the menu and all food ingredients. That way, if customers ask about specials, recommendations, and food allergies, employees can provide a quick and concise answer. It’ll put customers at ease and impress them with the efficiency.
Listen to Negative and Positive Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is unavoidable in the restaurant industry. And while customer complaints can be harsh, they do provide valuable insight.
So, gather feedback from customers about the service at your restaurant. Sift through online reviews for positive and negative feedback.
Use the positive feedback to encourage employees and market your restaurant. Use customer complaints to improve the customer experience by fixing these weaknesses in your restaurant training.
Utilize Online Training
Online training is an invaluable resource, especially for customer training. By using online training programs, employees can access the customer service guidelines whenever they need a refresher. You can also easily update and gamify the training experience, subliminally encouraging employees to spend more time on their customer training.
Offering training online is also a great way to train new employees. It’s more affordable than bringing in an extra employee for hands-on training and it provides guidelines for the new employee before their first workday – providing confidence and better service for your customers.
Provide Ongoing Restaurant Training
Customer service training should be an ongoing endeavor. This way your customer service will never feel stale and employees won’t lose their touch. Regularly update your customer service training guidelines and encourage employees to review the work. You can even provide rewards to incentivize them.
Track Customer Data
To effectively improve your customer service with customer service training, utilize customer data. Use the data to compare historic customer experiences with new customer experiences, after you’ve implemented a better customer service experience.
Use platforms like CRM software and reputation management software to track keyword mentions of your restaurant, customer service, and the general trends around your restaurant. That way you can decide whether the customer service training is succeeding or whether you might need to tweak the program.
Conclusion
The restaurant industry is saturated and competitive, and customer service is a deciding factor for many consumers.
If the customer service is bad, you risk losing customers and reputation points. If the customer service is good, you decrease acquisition costs, gain loyal customers, improve your brand image, and increase revenue.
To take advantage of these benefits, keep your customer service experience consistent. Regularly update your training program, make sure employees know the ins and outs of the restaurant, listen to negative feedback and keep track of your customer service training effects with data.
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