As a restaurateur, one of your tasks is to ensure that your guests have the best possible experience when they visit you. We have come up with XX tips for what you can do to ensure that your guests come back.
- The first thing you can do is to ensure that it is easy for your guests to reserve a table. The easier it is to reserve a table, the greater the chance that the customer will do so. If it is inconvenient, there is a greater risk that the customer will give up during the process. Therefore, it may be an advantage to have an easy and manageable booking platform where the customer can quickly choose the day and time that suits them best. You can look more closely at our integrations and see which booking system best suits you.
- Develop a good and well-crafted menu. This is the key to a successful restaurant experience. Ideally, there should be a variety of options to accommodate different diets, tastes, and potential allergens. It is also a plus if you have the opportunity to use local ingredients, as this can help make your restaurant unique in taste.
- Pay attention to details. It is the little details that can make a big difference when your customers come into your restaurant. Make sure the restaurant is clean, tidy, and well-maintained, and have decorations that fit the theme. Lighting is also a big factor - what kind of mood do you want to create? You can create a cozy atmosphere with dimmed lights or create a fresh atmosphere with bright lights. It's up to you and what you think fits best.
- Train your staff, as they are a very important part of the experience. If your staff are skilled and good at taking care of customers and any problems that may arise, it will help improve the experience. They should also be able to talk about the food, ingredients, and the way the dish is served. Train them in small nuggets of information that can impress the customer - it could be a fun fact about where some of the ingredients come from and perhaps a little story about the people who cultivate the ingredients.
- Be flexible and accommodating. It is an important thing if you want to meet your customers' needs, as it may happen that a customer has a special request that requires you to go a little beyond the usual. If you have the ability to be flexible, it also gives your customers the impression that they are getting a personalized experience and that they feel seen and heard.
- Offer good drinks. It's not just the food that needs to be top-notch if you run a restaurant - the drinks need to be too. It is therefore obvious to serve drinks with and without alcohol. For example, you can create a wine list where different wines match the different dishes served. As an alcohol-free alternative, it may also be appropriate to create a juice menu if it is suitable for the restaurant. But it is important that the customer has the choice of whether they want to drink alcohol or not. Soft drinks or mocktails can also be a really good option to have.
- Have good service. It is one of the absolutely most important factors that influence whether customers come back - whether they have received good service or not. It is therefore important that your staff is friendly, professional and attentive to the customer's needs. Be quick to make contact with the customer and then give them plenty of time to initiate a conversation so that the customer feels heard and has a personal experience. Of course, there may be busy periods where it may take a little longer, but that's how it is when a customer orders a table for Friday evening at 6:30 pm.
Those were 7 tips on how to improve the experience in your restaurant, so you can make your guests' experience top-notch.