One of the most important features of a restaurant actually has little to do with the menu, and may often go overlooked to the detriment of the business’s success. Restaurant patrons notice the restrooms, and their opinion of the facilities affects their perception of the restaurant as a whole.
A recent Harris Interactive poll found that 88% of people feel that a dirty bathroom reflects poorly on the cleanliness of the overall establishment, and 29% of these people said they would not return to a restaurant with a filthy bathroom. Even if the kitchen and dining areas are spotless, customers will question the overall management and hygiene of a restaurant if its restrooms are subpar. A dirty, neglected bathroom can sour an otherwise tasty meal, ruining the overall dining experience. With at least 29% of your customers at stake, restroom upkeep is a must.
Restrooms should be comfortable and hospitable to patrons. After a mid-meal bathroom break, your patrons should return to their seat and their meal with a positive feeling. First and foremost, it is vital that the facilities are as clean and orderly as possible, with all materials well-stocked and hardware fully functioning. Don’t settle for the bare necessities, however; add a special touch by offering free toiletries, mints, perfume, or fresh hand towels. Put in the extra effort to show your customers that you really care about their comfort.
You might also consider going the extra mile to make your restroom facilities memorable – in a good way. Bathrooms don’t need to be boring; a little creativity can go a long way to create a lasting impression. Interesting and memorable décor will add a talking point that can help set your restaurant apart from competitors and create buzz. Decorate the restrooms with a theme to match the mood of the restaurant, whether it is beautiful and elegant or quirky and unusual.
Regardless of how you choose to arrange or decorate your restaurant’s restrooms, keep in mind your patrons’ opinions. Their perception of your facilities matters: it will affect their overall opinion of your restaurant and, in turn, the success of your business. Be aware of how well (or poorly) customers perceive the facilities, and respond accordingly.
Filed under: Running a better business
Feedback from current loyal customers should be treated just as importantly as feedback from new visitors. Make it easy for customers to take your surveys and connect with you on social media, remedy problems in a timely manner, and track improvements with ongoing surveys.
Make it easy
Customers can share their experiences with any given business through multiple mediums and in a quick and convenient manner. Using a mobile survey system allows customers to give real-time feedback in a medium which they are comfortable with. Here you can also encourage customers to connect with you on social media or sign up for your email marketing list.
Encourage customers to connect
Companies should encourage new and regular customers who had positive experiences to join an email list, become a Facebook and Twitter fan, write a review on Yelp, and tell their friends about their experiences. One of the most effective ways your company can encourage these acts is by offering incentives such as discounts, freebies, coupons, and/or sweepstakes entries.
One good example of how businesses can get surveys responses from current customers is by asking for feedback from their Facebook fans and Twitter followers. These groups of consumers have already shown interest in the company, which indicates that they have had several experiences with the company.
Make sure they are happy – in a timely manner
Customers are much more likely to share a negative experience as opposed to a positive one, and it is crucial that business owners rectify negative experiences as quickly and as effectively as possible. Since many survey systems rely on service evaluation cards left behind or surveys completed at home on the web, it can be difficult for businesses to compensate for a negative experience in an effective and timely manner. If you use these methods, make sure you ask your customers the best way to contact them for followup. With the use of mobile surveys, businesses can enjoy faster organization of customer feedback and quicker responses to any issues that arise.
Encourage your regular customers to take your surveys with relative frequency
By consistently encouraging members of these groups to fill out mobile surveys after a popular sale or promotion, your business can have a better understanding of which business practices are effective and which are not by basing the information off of people who are already interested. By encouraging customers to take your surveys regularly, you can track improvements and help maintain your loyal following.
Filed under: Restaurants, Running a better business | Tags: customer feedback, online restaurant marketing, restaurant social media, Restaurants
You have a venue and a menu, waiters and waitresses, customers and critic’s approval, but do you have an online presence? Putting your restaurant on the map is no longer just about good food and ambiance; it is crucial to build a relationship with your customers after they have paid their bills and gone home.
Make it easy for your clients to find you online. Customers want to know if you have reservations available, what your hours are, what is on your current menu, if you deliver, if orders can be placed online, and what tonight’s specials are. Having the right terms on your website may make it easier for this information to be found quickly through a search engine. This can include search-engine optimized (SEO) site content as well as paid ads through products like Google AdWords. Beyond your restaurant name, make sure your menu, promotions, and specialties are easily searchable online as well, to ensure that diners seeking something particular find you first.
Ever find yourself miles from home and craving good pizza? If you’re not in your own neighborhood, you might not know where the nearest or tastiest pizzeria can be found. These days, your first move is probably to whip out your smartphone and start searching for the area’s best pizza shop. But what if the area’s best pizzeria has a website that you can’t open on your mobile device? You are left without store hours, delivery options, or menu access. Instead of taking a risk, you might decide to check out another nearby shop, and the first pizzeria loses a customer.
Why let your own business suffer the same fate? Your next client is very likely to be a mobile device user and may be looking up your restaurant right now on a smartphone. Optimizing your website to satisfy your mobile users may require changes from your regular site, but it can make a world of difference to your business when they can easily search your location, menu, and hours on their smartphone.
What about customers right in your neighborhood? Many mobile searches target a particular geographic location; specifically, a one mile radius. Allowing customers to use their mobile devices as a GPS tool makes it easier for your diners to find you quickly.
Trying to get closer to your customers? You can be right in their phone every day. Social media isn’t new to most restaurant owners, but it is often an underutilized tool in the quest for building a stronger relationship with your customers. You don’t have to force your way into a customer’s home via email to let them know the story behind your brand.
Reviews and Feedback Your reputation lies in the hands of your reviewers online. Why not show your customers that you care by giving them the opportunity to give you feedback? Using mobile surveys, you can easily create a positive experience by allowing customers to comment on their experience and share a good experience with their friends. Giving mobile surveys is also a great way to easily collect email addresses and build your email marketing list of opt-in customers.
Tools like Facebook let you share what’s special about your brand on a daily basis, not just the special you’re offering this weekend. Whether it is the fact that you’ve been family-run for three generations, your world-class macaroni and cheese, or your Friday night jazz ensemble, social media tools share information, not simply ‘news.’ It is also easy for your customers to express their love of your business and share it with friends!
If you’re sharing links and information over email or social media or even if you are relying on search terms to direct customers to your site, you will want to know what works. Trend-spotting is key for developing a successful online marketing strategy.
This doesn’t mean that you need to start crunching numbers at the end of a hard workday; tools like link shrinkers and Google Analytics allow you to measure activity and see how your customers choose to interact with your brand online. Are you appearing in searches but not connecting with customers? Do most of your online orders happen after you send your weekly email? Check the trends to see where your visits increase and decrease and what online activity is associated with those changes.
Filed under: Email Marketing, Running a better business | Tags: email list building, email lists, restaurant email marketing
When customers provide their names and contact information to your business, they do so with certain expectations. While some of these expectations are simply classified as social etiquette, others fall more cleanly under federal laws such as the CAN-SPAM act. As a client-centric business, you would be wise to meet both your customers’ social standards and the legal requirements associated with customer sign-ups.
There are certain key elements to your customer signup marketing policy:
Privacy policy. As you collect customers’ personal information online or in person, you need to have a plan established to let customers know who will see this information. Meet the legal requirements by having and publishing a privacy policy. Guarantee your customers’ peace of mind: ensure that you will keep that information as protected as possible.
Collect only what you need. Remember that it is safer for your business if you collect the least personal information necessary. This is especially true when dealing with children. The Federal Trade Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act sets guidelines for companies marketing products or services to children under thirteen. As a result, your site registration may require parental consent or may be prohibited from collecting information if the user is below thirteen years old.
Protect your brand. Keep your intellectual property safe by developing and requiring acceptance of terms of use before using your site. This can assure your business arbitration in disputes with customers.
Don’t abuse your users. You treat your clients with utmost respect, why not treat your online audience the same? Don’t hassle them by asking for all their information upfront: layer registration requirements to collect more information as they go deeper into your website. While the FTC regulates email marketing, it doesn’t ban unsolicited emails. Meet the requirements of disclosure and unsubscribe, but remember not to harass your users via email.
Take no for an answer. Legally, you must! To comply with federal regulations, you must maintain a suppression list, tracking every request to no longer receive emails or texts. If you outsource your email or textmarketing, make sure your vendor knows not to violate a user’s unsubscribe request.
Text Safely. Text marketing must include a ‘standard text rates’ apply disclosure as well as opt-in and unsubscribe tools. The legal intricacies of text marketing are constantly evolving.
Consistency counts. Keep your emails, websites, and coupons consistent, especially expiration dates and other stipulations.
Full disclosure. With social media growing bigger every day, it’s only natural to want to tap into that market by encouraging brand ambassadors to promote your product on their site. Remember that laws require disclosure if your business pays anyone to endorse or discuss the product on a blog, Facebook, or Twitter.
While you do not necessarily need to obtain legal counsel before developing your marketing plan, it may be a good idea to further research best practices and any laws which affect how you capture email signups.
Filed under: Email Marketing, Restaurants, Running a better business | Tags: customer service surveys, email list building, Email Marketing, mobile surveys
What’s more valuable than being able to reach your customers at any hour of the day? Sharing the right information in the most effective manner. Your business has ample opportunity to contact customers thanks to the prevalence of email marketing, but misuse of this tool can be fatal for your customers’ interest in your product.
Before you send out your next marketing email, be sure to read these tips on optimizing your email marketing to boost your business’ sales.
Give your clients what they want. While you might think new restaurant flatware or a recently replaced carpet is interesting stuff, your customers want to know about what’s in it for them. Customers want to hear about events, discounts, promotions and specials.
Be personal and relevant. When you collect email addresses, ask for other information as well. You will delight your customers with birthday greetings and rewards. The email promotions you send should be available at the locations most convenient to the client. Don’t pester your customers with promotions they likely won’t be able to use! Similarly, keep your promotions timely. Send seasonal specials as the season kicks off, when your customers have the time of year in mind.
Make an impression. Email boxes fill up quickly with company promotions. Make your email marketing stand out! Use a stimulating headline to ensure your message doesn’t go straight to the recycle bin. Highlight the purpose of the email, be it a sale, a promotion, or a new product, right in the headline. Of course, getting a customer to open the email isn’t the end of the battle. A well-written paragraph or two may adequately share your message, but only if the client bothers to read it. Consider adding design elements like photography and art to share your message efficiently and effectively. Of course, keep it short! Customers care about what’s in it for them.
Don’t be a pest. No one wants to hear from you daily. The more emails you send, the more your customers will find themselves deleting your messages as ‘spam.’ Determine what works best for your business, but set a regular interval. Maybe you have a weekly special that is worthy of highlighting; in that case, a weekly email may be perfect. Setting a seasonal menu? Bi-monthly emails will let your customers know what to expect as the menu changes. Try to be consistent with your frequency so customers know when to expect to hear from you. There aren’t any consistent published guidelines regarding email frequency, however one good rule of thumb is to base it on how frequently your customer makes a buying decision in your type of industry. It is important to keep an eye on your unsubscribe list. If your rate of unsubscribes goes up, you may be emailing too frequently.
Diversify and integrate. Email is effective, but many clients are proficient in and active on social media channels. Encourage customers to sign up for your Facebook page or to be a Twitter follower. This allows customers to become more connected to your brand and your business. Speak mobile fluently. With mobile device and smartphone use growing by the day, it becomes more necessary that your emails translate fully to mobile screens. This includes your text, images, and links.
Let them forward. Never forget to include an ‘share’ link in every email. This allows your customers to share their love of your product with friends. Word of mouth in the digital age extends to email forwarding!
Segmented Lists segmenting addresses based on interests or demographics can help your emails be more relevant, especially when promoting events or specials.
Filed under: Restaurants, Running a better business, Survey Feedback | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, customer service surveys, feedback follow up, guest-services
A great example of what NOT to do.
No matter how hard you work at making your business run well, there will be customer complaints. Some customers will keep their complaints to themselves. Others, though, will express their concerns to you through your Guest Satisfaction Surveys. If your customers are willing to be honest with you and share their issues with your business, they likely expect two things: problem resolution and personal follow-up.
Today, let’s focus on the latter. Many customer surveys ask for contact information for businesses to get in touch with guests after guests lodge complaints. Failing to follow up with a dissatisfied guest may result in a lost customer and a bad reputation. Handling customer complaints is best done with simple courtesy:
1. Listen: Read their comments fully and closely. If speaking in person, do not interrupt. They have something to tell you, you need to hear it.
2. Say Thank You: Always, always, always say thank you! Follow up with any customer complaints. Respond to them in whatever medium they provide you contact information; the more direct the better. If they give their phone number, call them. Let them know you care.
3. Apologize: If you care about your customers’ experience, you need to apologize. Do not rest on rationalizations and excuses; apologize for your customers’ subpar experience with your company. Make the apology sincere.
4. Show Respect: Consider the customers’ feelings and opinions when seeking a resolution. Work together to find the answer. Ask what the customer would like to have happen – the customer may expect less than you think.
5. Send a Note: Follow up with your customer and thank them for their input. Let them know how you made appropriate changes. Customers will often respond positively to your focus on making them part of the solution.
Your customers will appreciate your good manners and strong follow-up. Moreover, they will share that good experience with others. Just as an unhappy customer can keep potential customers away, a satisfied customer will relate that experience with others. Prompt, sincere follow-up is critical to address guest issues.
Filed under: Restaurants, Running a better business | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, negative customer feedback, Training employees
As the old saying goes, the customer is always right. It may make perfect sense to you as a business owner, but how can you explain that concept to your employees when sharing negative feedback? Further, how can you translate that into an appropriate response by your employees?
First, being able to obtain candid, prompt feedback from your clients is only as valuable as your ability to respond. Of course, expressing clients’ complaints with staff can be the hardest task. Failing to share the feedback will hamper change but addressing the issue can offend your staff members. Tact and respect are the keys to bringing sensitive issues to the table. When addressing customers’ complaints with your staff:
- Consider: about whom or what was the complaint lodged? Your customer could be upset with one employee or disappointed with a product or service handled by several members of your team. Meet with solo offenders individually, but don’t be afraid to gather a full group to address larger scale issues.
- Check with your front line of defense: your employees. Do they recognize the problem being raised by the customer? Were they aware of the issue?
- Listen to your employees’ responses. After all, you hired them because you believe they are skilled at what they do! Their opinions count. Do they think the complaints are reasonable? Your employees’ response is vital. While a good employee is concerned about customer appreciation, they may be able to offer a fuller picture of the customer’s experience.
If your employee agrees with the customer’s complaint, it’s time to discuss strategies to make a change. What does the employee recommend? What do you recommend? Are there examples of similar problem resolution strategies in your company? In your industry? Ask your employee what staff can do differently in the future to prevent this from happening again.
If your employee doesn’t recognize the validity of the complaint, consider who is right – platitudes aside – your employee or your customer? If you believe your employee is right, stand up for him or her with the customer. If you stand by the customer, explain why to your employee. In a one-on-one setting, make it clear what you see about the employee’s performance that is an issue. Again, consider potential solutions to work with your employee to resolve the situation so your employee knows you care about his or her contributions.
Remember to use tact and respect when working with your employees. From entry level to senior management, a business is only as strong as its staff. Making everyone feel like part of the team is crucial to having employees buy in to your mission and meet your company’s standard of service.
