Are You Making Enough Memorable Engagements with Your Guests?

Deloitte recently published the results of a survey about the restaurant customer experience. According to the report, there are five ways in which restaurants can create a memorable experience. Guests want you to:

• “Know me”
• “Engage me”
• “Empower me”
• “Hear me”
• “Delight me”

If you do this well, your restaurant will see a big boost in return visits and revenue with:

• 60% stating that a positive experience with a restaurant will cause them to go back to it.
• 39% saying that a positive experience encourages them to spend more at a restaurant.

If you’re trying to increase your restaurant’s lifetime customer value this year, improving the customer experience with memorable engagements is one way to do it.

Create Memorable Engagements Across All Channels

Guests expect a lot from your restaurant — and not just tableside either. The engagements they make with you on digital channels and even within their home matter just as much. Which is why you need to strengthen all of your touchpoints in order to keep them happy and coming back for more.

The following list will get you thinking about ways in which you can improve how well your restaurant satisfies the five criteria as noted by Deloitte.

Table-side

Guests that dine in are going to interact with a number of your staff:

• Hosts
• Servers
• Management
• Event organizers or hosts (like if you have live music, meet the chef opportunities, or other in-house entertainment)

They may also get a chance to directly or indirectly interact with the following technology:

• Mobile pager systems
• Menus
• Tableside kiosks or mobile POS
• Mobile pay options
• Free wi-fi

Be mindful of how each of these engagements contributes to the overall whole. As you review your data as well as your customer feedback, don’t just measure how satisfied guests were with their server. Was the wait too long? Did the mobile POS improve or impede ordering? Did too many people intrude on the guests’ night out?

Identify areas of weakness and put together a plan to fix them.

Takeout / Delivery

The Deloitte survey demonstrated that customers’ expectations are just as high (if not more so) for the takeout and delivery experiences as they are with the sit-down.

Take note here that the engage me / empower me / delight me ratio differs based on the dining format.

While “delight me” remains mostly consistent across the board, the other two vary greatly, which makes sense. Your guests want a seamless experience when ordering in, which means you need to give them more control over the experience to ensure it gets done to their liking.

So, as you consider how to improve your takeout or delivery services, be sure to focus on the “engage me” and “empower me” prongs in particular.

• Does your website make it easy to place an order?
• If not, are you using a reliable third-party delivery service?
• Are your delivery drivers or staff manning the takeout station pleasant and helpful?
• Does your ordering system remember logged-in guests to save them time placing repeat orders?
• Do customers receive timely alerts via email or SMS regarding order status and pickup?

Again, it’s just as much about how your people affect the experience as does your technology.

Website

Your website is a very important channel for guests as well as people researching new dining options online. As such, you want to make sure that, as an engagement channel, everyone gets what they need without creating an experience that’s overwhelming.

Focus on the essentials:

• Is the design simple and easy on the eyes?
• Is your location and contact information in the header?
• Is there a link to your menu in the header?
• Can the menu be easily viewed by anyone using a computer or mobile device?
• Have you included real photos from your restaurant and menu to give interested parties an idea of what they’re in for?
• Do all of your contact forms, online ordering tools, or reservation systems work as they should?

Another thing to think about is a blog. You don’t need to write lengthy posts on the state of dining or anything like that. However, sharing recipes from your kitchen would be of great value — not just to guests who love those dishes, but to anyone searching online for related recipes. It’s a great way to drive new traffic to your restaurant.

You can also use a blog to keep customers up-to-date on upcoming events, menu changes, and so on. While your website might not be something you want people to spend a lot of time on, the information you provide should compel them to spend more time inside your restaurant.

Social Media

There are a number of reasons why guests might gravitate towards your channels and why you should be willing to meet them there.

For starters, there’s the informational piece. Even if they don’t first visit your website, your social media channels — and that includes a Google My Business page — can provide important details about your address, hours of operation, menu, and more. You can also create and share upcoming events and inform a broader customer set about what’s happening in your restaurant.

There’s also the customer service aspect. If guests reach out with questions or complaints, you want to be available to help them out — especially if they post their negative commentary in a public forum. Take control of the conversation and get them into a private channel so you can resolve the matter.

And because consumers can leave reviews on Facebook and Google, these channels have become really valuable in terms of gathering data and taking action to resolve operational issues.

Why the Customer Experience Matters So Much

Thanks to the Internet and the proliferation of smart devices, businesses now have a multitude of channels through which they can engage customers. It gets even more complicated for restaurants and other hospitality providers whose businesses have in-person interactions to account for.

With so many potential touchpoints, how do you ensure you’re making memorable and positive engagements with guests on all of them?

The key to staying on top of all channels and engagements is a guest engagement and recovery platform like Pedanco. Not only is it beneficial to know what’s going on, but you need to be able to respond in real-time if any of these engagements turn sour or simply fail to meet expectations. Pedanco enables you to do that.