There is a direct relationship between how important the customers are in the eyes of the restaurant owners or managers and the way their staff will treat them.
The best restaurants in the world have a philosophy, almost an obsession, to please and serve their clients and provide them with an emotional experience that they will remember and bring them back over and over.
Think that both your customers (people who go to your restaurant once or twice) and your clients (your regulars who go to your place often) are bombarded with constant offers from your competitors.
They receive tons of discount coupons, advertising and promotions from other restaurants enticing them to try their place, and it’s easy to fell into the marketing call and try a place that serves them cheaper or better than yours. And if they get to eat at another restaurant that it’s both, cheaper and better, then you are in real trouble!
So what can you do to differentiate your restaurant from your competitors so that they don’t abandon ship?
The answer is easier to say than to fulfill: you need to be better than your competitors.
The problem is that every day, the bar in customer service is being raised by your competitors; after all, they are not sleeping either or they would be out of business soon. You have to continue to raise your client’s expectations bar higher and higher just to keep one step ahead of your competition.
There are four levels of customer satisfaction in the restaurant business (or in any customer facing business for that matter):
1. Meeting Expectations
People expect to go to a restaurant where the place is clean and pleasant, the service efficient, and personable, the food tasty, and served on time, and the prices reasonable.
These are the minimum standards that everybody expects when they walk into a restaurant. If your restaurant meets all of them, congratulations, you’ve passed the first level or your customers’ satisfaction; but this is not enough.
If meeting your customer’s expectations is all you do, you are already getting behind your competitors.
If you are not even meeting these expectations, then my friend you are in real trouble and you must fix the problems immediately if you want to stay in business for the foreseeable future.
2. Exceeding Expectations
You can exceed your customer’s expectations when you offer something better than the first level.
Perhaps your food is really good (versus just expected quality) or your place is really beautiful or it has a great location with views. Perhaps your servers are extra professional and know how to engage your customers and clients.
3. Delighting Your Customers and Clients
One step above and beyond exceeding expectations is to delight your clients offering something unique that they can’t find anywhere else.
For example, a couple of regular clients walk into your restaurant, you recognize them and know what their favorite table is. Soon, you sit them in that table (without them asking you for it), and bring them a small appetizer complementary of the house.
Then you approach the table, and engage in a sincere talk with your clients. You ask them about their lives and their families and suggest a special of the day or a really great wine that just came to your place.
You make their dinning experience memorable by giving them more than they anticipate, by surprising them with unexpected details that they will remember and tell their friends and family members about.
4. Amaze Your Customers and Clients
This is the ultimate goal and therefore difficult to implement. However, if you can amaze your clients, if not each time that they eat at your place, repeatedly, you will be heads and shoulders above your competitors.
What can you do to amaze your customers and clients? Actually, you don’t need to spend much money or reduce your profit margins by giving away the house.
It is more a matter of being creative than being expensive. Here you have some ideas:
- You could offer your clients complimentary something before starting the meals and during the lunch or dinning times. Some house made appetizers that you set on the table before they order their drinks (they don’t have to be expensive, it is just the detail that counts).
- A change of napkins in the middle of the dinner or each time that a customer goes to the bathroom.
- Giving a fresh flower to the ladies at the beginning of the meal.
- A personal chat with the chef when somebody orders the house special or a signature dish.
- Giving a copy of the printed recipe of one of your dishes when some customers tell you or your staff that they really enjoyed it.
- Giving some of your customers a jar with some special sauce that your restaurant uses in the dishes.
- Sitting a party in a special table if they are celebrating a special occasion (anniversary, birthday, etc.)
- Inviting some guests to tour your kitchen (if possible) so that they get to say hello to your chef and cooks. I know of a restaurant that has a table in the kitchen. Special parties can eat there and “enjoy” the busy and often hectic pace of the lunch and dinner times. Believe it or not, customers love the idea and they often request that table.
- Calling a complimentary taxi for some clients if you noticed that they had one too many drinks.
- Etc.
These are just a few quick ideas. As I said, you don’t have to be very expensive, just creative to surprise and amaze your customers.
Restaurants that delight and amaze their clients are the ones that will be remembered and sought after. Your job as a restaurant owner and manager is to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and clients and think what can you do to surprise them and amaze them.
Create in your place an open door policy and encourage your staff to come up with creative ideas to amaze and delight your clients. You both will benefit since your place will be full of happy customers, and your waiters will get bigger tips and lots of hours to work.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.Twitter.com/jlriesco