The recipe for a successful restaurant requires a few ingredients; delicious food, a captivating ambiance, and, of course, reliable customer service. Unfortunately, customer service is an element that is often overlooked. Restaurant owners think that if they provide a menu of delectable dishes, they can make up for average customer service efforts. This is simply not true!
If your restaurant’s customer service strategy needs some attention, follow the four simple tips featured in this post.
Restaurant Customer Service Tips:
1. Provide thorough training – To improve your restaurant’s customer service, you should go back to the basics. Consider, how are you preparing your employees to interact with patrons? If you’re not instilling values into your employees from the start, you’re setting your restaurant up for failure.
When waiters, hosts and other personnel that interact with customers are hired, you should ensure that they receive extensive training. Have them shadow a knowledgeable employee who they can learn from, complete a restaurant training course and maybe even complete a comprehensive exam to prove that they are ready to start working. These experiences will prepare your employees to serve customers in a respectful and attentive manner, so that you can keep complaints to a minimum.
2. Use social media – Many restaurant owners don’t realize that social media can be a major asset when conducting customer service. You should consistently monitor social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. By doing this, you can answer questions and interact with customers. If you aren’t active on social media, you could miss customer complaints and other issues that need to be addressed.
3. Ask for feedback – If you want to receive direct feedback from patrons, provide a URL that they can visit to complete a quick customer satisfaction survey. If customers take the survey, they are entered to win a gift card or other incentive. By doing this, it is essentially a win-win. You can get feedback from your customers about any issues your restaurant might be having, and they are rewarded for participating. Make sure that once surveys have been submitted, you address recurring complaints. If customers provide feedback, you’ll earn their respect, and hopefully they’ll frequent your restaurant in the future.
4. Provide convenience – Restaurant patrons appreciate convenience. People are always on-the-go, and typically will do anything to save time and effort. So, consider this when you’re refining your customer service strategy. If your customers complain about wait-times, want to place takeout orders easily or request delivery services, consider these comments. If you can implement new technologies or procedures that will offer your patrons a more convenient experience, they are certainly worth considering.
Without loyal customers, your restaurant cannot be successful. Show your patrons that you appreciate their business by executing the four customer service tactics featured in this post. You’ll be surprised at how your restaurant operations approve when you make customer satisfaction a priority!
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Blog post contributed by Katie Alteri, Fora Financial for Goliath Consulting Group.
Katie Alteri is the content marketing coordinator at Fora Financial, a company that provides small business loans to businesses across the U.S. Fora Financial can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.