One thing that can make or break your restaurant is Customer Service. No matter how good the food itself, the location, or your atmosphere, if a customer has an unpleasant experience with your staff, it can ruin their whole impression of you. There’s no guaranteed way to improve your customer service, but here are a few tips we think can help!
1. Encourage Your Staff
Believe it or not, good Customer Service in your Restaurant starts with an encouraged and empowered staff! When your servers know and feel they are supported by the management, the way they go about work can be improved immensely, and this will be reflected in the way they treat your customers.
2. Provide Consistency
From consistent temperature of fries to being treated the same way by every staff member, the customer will feel comfortable when they know what they’re getting. This is especially what can keep them coming back to your restaurant – knowing they are going to get great food and friendly service every time, no matter the cook or the waiter.
3. Focus on Communication
This is a broad subject, but it’s never a bad time to re-analyze the way your team communicates in your restaurant. Look at how each part of your staff communicates internally – kitchen to wait staff, hosts to servers, etc. Building a team that communicates well improves your efficiency – wait times go down, your business looks more professional, and your customers will be much more satisfied.
The other route you could go is to look at how your team communicates with the customers. Are they greeted at the door? How do you talk with them about the current wait times – is it with a negative or a positive spin? Many times the right message communicated to a customer through the wrong tone can ruin a customer’s experience in your restaurant.
4. Add a Personal Touch
There are many ways to personalize a restaurant, but one of the most important ones to your customers is how your staff cares for the customer. One way to make a customer feel cared for is for the server to add a little personal touch to their dining experience. Ask what brought them in tonight, compliment the shirt they are wearing, etc. Whatever you can do to make their dining experience unique to them. If the customer feels sincerely cared for, the little things they might complain about simply fade away.
5. Optimize Your Workflow
It’s so easy to lose track of an order, to miss a food allergy, or even just slow down turnaround time. This is why it’s important to analyze your restaurant’s flow and find any places you can improve. From the moment a customer sets foot in your door, to putting their order in, to paying, minimizing mistakes and time between each of these steps can keep exceptional service and food in front of your customers.
One way to optimize your restaurant’s process is to make sure you are using top-of-the-line tools. AccuPOS is a perfect tool to give your employees, providing a lightning-fast, user-friendly point of sale. If your POS is in need of an upgrade to really help you improve your restaurant’s customer service, give us a call today!
