Filed under: Uncategorized
According to a July 2009 study by Econsultancy, 90 percent of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trust the opinions of unknown users. These statistics suggest that positive social networking reviews and positive reviews on sites like Yelp can result in a surplus of new customers.
Put in perspective, consider the hypothetical situation of one of your customers posting a positive review on both Yelp and Facebook. If that customer has 100 Facebook friends, this post alone could result in an adopted positive opinion from approximately 90 of those friends according to the statistic above. Added with the expected increase of just 100 consumers from the Yelp review, these two reviews alone could result in a collective increase of perhaps 160 prospective customers. If those customers just spent $10 per person at your business, this results in a revenue increase of $1,600. On the other hand, a negative review could result in total loss of $1,600, plus the future business of the reviewer.
Mobile surveys give businesses the opportunity to rectify negative experiences quickly, which helps the likelihood of positive reviews. Failure to act on a negative experience directly after it occurs can often be detrimental to the company’s reputation, since many consumers have constant access to share their experiences with the public. Since your best consumers already understand and support the company, they are the most valuable group for offering insight into how to fix problems and ultimately improve the consumer experience.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer service surveys, iPhone survey app, ipod surveys, restaurant survey app, restaurant surveys, Training employees
The best surveys are those that take very little time to complete, as few customers want to spend much more than five minutes filling out a survey. Unfortunately, some consumers may be inclined to reject taking surveys based upon the false notion that all surveys are time-consuming. When this happens, you want to be able to rely upon your staff to encourage guests to fill out your surveys. Encouraging a guest to complete a survey is something that your employees should feel motivated about. Not only should you provide incentives for employees based on survey results, but it can also help to encourage them to promote customers taking surveys. Providing an incentive is a great way to help your employees connect better shifts and bonuses with helping guests complete surveys.
Train Employees To Be Comfortable With Surveys
It is vital to train employees to be knowledgeable about your surveys, how you use the results, and how they can benefit from surveys both so they can encourage guests to take surveys as well as understand why you are using surveys. The more that your employees know about the surveys you use, the easier it will become for employees to encourage guests to fill them out and answer questions guests have. While mobile surveys are simple to use and simple to understand, it’s important for employees to understand how survey materials work. Take the time to explain the survey marketing materials to your employees. This will provide every staff member with the tools needed to sell a product or encourage guests to complete a survey.
Get Employees Involved
By asking your employees to weigh in on survey and marketing problems, you may find new ideas and solutions. The more that you allow you employees to become a part of your marketing success, the more inclined they will be to encourage guests to take surveys and take part in understanding the results, and making the right service improvements. When all team members really feel like part of a team, the outcome is a staff that wants to take part in the success. Whether you are trying to get clients to fill out surveys or simply try to sell more desserts, remember that your employees have the most face time with guests and can have a huge impact on the success of your surveys.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ipad surveys, iPhone surveys, ipod surveys, mobile, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys, Surveys
Part 1 of How Mobile Survey Systems Can be Used for Restaurant Service Improvement
We feel inspired to respond to the recent Boston Globe article about how text-based systems can be used for ordering and marketing, as well as to a few of the reader comments discussing a few new ideas about the many ways restaurants can benefit from text-based systems.
Not only can text-based systems and mobile apps be used for ordering more food, getting a reservation, or used to promote restaurant deals, they can also be used to improve the guest experience in real-time, including the service, food, restaurant environment, and gaining a more loyal customer social media and email following. They can also help build better relationships with customers by enabling them to contribute their insights into how the experience can be improved. This can all be done using mobile devices in real-time, saving costs by eliminating traditional paper surveys, as well as giving the management insight into any service issues and improving employee coaching.
Here are a few ways a mobile survey system can greatly benefit restaurants:
Real-Time Feedback and Detailed Reporting
Real-time feedback means restaurant managers and employees are aware of how well they are serving guests on that day. It provides instant insight into customer satisfaction regarding the food, the service, and other elements within a restaurant’s environment such as noise level or bathroom cleanliness. All the survey submissions are instantly compiled and visible through the manager’s web portal, so they can track feedback based on any changes they are making to see if they are on the right track with their decisions and service changes.
Saves Time and Money
Traditional paper surveys are much less likely to be taken than mobile surveys, they are often not comprehensive or only incorporate the extremes of customer opinions, are expensive to give out and time-consuming to compile answers, and don’t allow you to fix immediate service issues. Using a mobile-based survey system, restaurants can save on time and money versus giving out paper surveys, and gain far more insight into how well you are serving customers. Additionally, surveys taken in real-time can be more effective than reminding customers to take an online survey when they get home, as the experience is fresh in their minds and they have a moment of free time.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: guest-services, ipad surveys, iPhone surveys, restaurant survey, restaurant survey app, Restaurants, survey app, Survey On The Spot, Surveys
Part 1 highlights major issues in gathering customer feedback in traditional forms.
Many restaurants and other guest-service oriented businesses use customer comment cards to gain feedback and insights into how well they are performing and how satisfied their customers are. Printed guest satisfaction surveys are costly, time consuming to compile, and a relatively archaic method of learning how well your restaurant is serving guests. With the advancement of survey technology and mobile apps, as well as the proficient use and availability of smartphones, there are better and cheaper ways of gaining more comprehensive insights about guest satisfaction and restaurant performance.
Time consuming and costly to compile
Customer comments cards printed out on paper, card stock, or at the bottom of a receipt can be fairly cheap to generate however very time consuming to compile the results and enter into a database. The effort it takes to read and compile results from these surveys, many of which are biased and inaccurate, far outweighs the benefits gained from the few useful surveys produced. In addition, many restaurants use prepaid reply cards which have postage costs associated with them, and customers may not take the surveys till well after they were in the restaurant.
Feedback isn’t always authentic
Traditional customer survey forms are a hassle to revise and change to suit the dynamic survey needs of a restaurant, and as a result tend to be more generic in nature. The surveys are taken by relatively few customers, very often who fall within the extremes of either feeling the need to give very positive feedback or very negative feedback. With comment cards that are turned in at the restaurant, there is also a risk that negative survey responses may not be turned in to the manager or to headquarters, or (while rare) even a risk of surveys being forged.
Part 2 will continue to touch on major problems many guest-service businesses have with traditional surveys.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, mobile restaurant surveys, real-time survey reporting, restaurant surveys, Survey On The Spot
The Ninety Nine Restaurant, a casual dining restaurant and pub that is primarily based in New England, uses mobile survey app SURVEY ON THE SPOT to provide consistency and simplify their menu development process. The research and development team uses the devices internally to test and evaluate new products on a sample of consumer taste panels. The device processes the consumer taste panels feedback immediately, making it possible for management to quickly collect, tabulate raw data, and recognize patterns of feedback on products they are considering adding to the menu. The ability to quickly and easily organize customer feedback, allows the Ninety Nine Restaurant to best consider the likes, dislikes and suggestions of their customers to improve the overall quality of the food, individual establishments and the entire chain. The mission statement of the Ninety Nine Restaurant is simple: “A Passion to Serve.” SURVEY ON THE SPOT is helping the restaurant add and refine its products so that the Ninety Nine not only serves, but delivers what consumers truly want.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, restaurant survey, Restaurants, Survey On The Spot
Not Your Average Joes restaurant boasts a dining experience that offers “Casual Creative Cuisine” with over a dozen locations in the Boston area and Northern Virginia. As part of the steps of service in which the guest receives their check, each guest is provided with an iPod Touch device, that is set to only run the Not Your Average Joes mobile survey using the SURVEY ON THE SPOT application. The guest has ample time to complete the survey while the server is processing the check payment. Thus far, response rates are minimally 10X (10X!!!) greater than average without the use of any reward for the consumer. The consumers curiosity for the technologically forward device will likely increase response rate over a simple paper survey. In addition, the system automatically collects email signups from guests wishing to join Not Your Average Joes email club. Overall, the SURVEY ON THE SPOT approach and app infrastructure increase consumer feedback and give the restaurant the ability to further communicate with consumers. The devices are set to roll out to all Not Your Average Joes restaurants over the next two months.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, real-time survey reporting, Survey On The Spot
A question from a recent TSA experience survey from SURVEY ON THE SPOT.
Rate your confidence in the TSA’s ability to keep air travel secure.
Download the free SURVEY ON THE SPOT app.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, customer service surveys, Survey On The Spot
A question from a recent TSA experience survey from SURVEY ON THE SPOT.
Rate the thoroughness of passenger screening you received.
Download the free SURVEY ON THE SPOT app.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer experience, customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, Survey On The Spot
Making it easy isn’t all that it takes to get your guests to participate in your Customer Satisfaction surveys. Assuring that there is shared accountability on the part of all of your team members is critical to gain participation, regardless of how easy and convenient you make it. This has been demonstrated extremely well in a many situations. In traditional, paper based or web environments, ensuring that your team encourages participation by pointing out receipt messaging is required to generate any hope of participation. Even in a mobile survey environment, failure to engage your employees and customers in the process will lead to suboptimal survey participation despite the easy access to the survey. Best practices include using a ‘business card’ for servers to present to customers on their arrival that identifies the servers name and the process to take the survey. The use of contests and incentive programs that encourage servers to achieve the highest number of survey submissions also can be very effective. This method creates very high levels of service awareness amongst employees while improving participation rates. Most systems can easily control submission fraud, so that is not a critical issue. The key to good participation rates in guest satisfaction measurement programs requires both ease of participation and and the efforts of everyone on your team.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: customer feedback, iPhone surveys, restaurant surveys, Survey On The Spot
Ninety Nine Restaurants picked up SURVEY ON THE SPOT‘s survey system to gather feedback on customer habits, visit quality, and comments.
99 uses SURVEY ON THE SPOT
