How to Know When It’s Time to Try Something New
Before you try something new that will significantly impact your guests’ experience, take the time to listen to them. You can talk to them in-house about proposed ideas. You can listen to their chatter on social media and review sites. You can also search for commonalities in improvement suggestions they make in your feedback channels.
If you can get their buy-in on this new thing you want to try, you might be able to keep them from wondering whether it’s time for them to try something/somewhere new.
Is it time for your restaurant to try something new? And is it a risk worth taking?
Change can come in many forms; some changes being less drastic than others. You might be thinking about:
- Creating a new menu.
- Testing a new dining concept.
- Opening a new location.
- Upgrading the decor.
- Rebranding.
- Changing technology or food vendors.
- And so on.
Like with everything else in your restaurant, the decision to try something new isn’t one you can make on a whim. So, before you go implementing any changes to your operation, consider the following scenarios and how they might help you clearly and confidently make a decision:
Errors, Accidents, and Other Missteps Are Common
Does it feel like you and your staff are putting out more fires than actually serving customers?
If blunders are a common occurrence in your restaurant, don’t be so quick to assume it’s due to one thing or another. Turn to your data to locate the common thread amongst these costly issues.
Do the premises need an upgrade to make it a safer work environment?
Are servers and bartenders continually overloaded and rushed, leading to sloppier handling of food and beverages?
Is your POS or kitchen ticketing system outdated?
Track down the culprit and lay out your plans for fixing it. This way, the solution won’t just be to try a few random things and see if something sticks. You’ll have data to back it up.
Customer Retention Is Non-Existent
Your restaurant premises are spotless and the environment always comfortable. Customers seem to be happy with their meals. And your staff really doesn’t have much to say about anything. Yet, your customer retention rates are too low. What’s going on?
In all honesty, it could be any number of things. However, if everything seems great from the outside, yet the response from customers and staff is that of ambivalence, it might be that your brand needs to try something new.
You might need to test a new concept, which is easy to do these days with the adoption of customer-facing technology.
You might need to move locations if the one you’re in doesn’t reach the right demographic.
Or you might need a more affordable or accessible menu, so that your restaurant isn’t just some hot new restaurant that diners want to try just once.
Regardless of what the source of the low customer retention rate is, you’re going to have to try something new. The best place to figure out what’s causing the lackluster experience is from customer feedback.
Your Staff Is Unhappy
There’s much more to the dining experience than the quality of the meal you put before guests. Take, for instance, the way your staff engages with them. Were the hosts prompt and friendly? Were the servers attentive and helpful?
Every single person that comes into contact with your guests — from in-house staff to the people who interact with them when delivering food to their doorstep — can affect the experience. And when your team feels unhappy, unsatisfied, or underappreciated, that’s going to rub off on your guests.
But the solution to this isn’t necessarily to hire all new staff. If you don’t address the underlying issues causing the discontent, the problem will arise time and time again.
So, talk to your staff and find out what’s going on. Is there a common complaint they share? Is the menu too difficult to sell? Is the work environment stressful?
Find the source, so you can implement a new solution that erases the underlying problem.
Is It Time to Try Something New in Your Restaurant?
Famed chef José Andrés recounted the story of how he brought the small plate movement to the United States on an episode of How I Built This. As he explained on the podcast, his first tapas restaurant experienced quite a bit of pushback initially because Americans weren’t in the habit of sharing food.
He was nervous that this new concept would never take off in the U.S. the way it did in his native Spain. But then he sat back and listened.
His diners talked about what they wanted from the dining experience and it was then that Andrés had confirmation that his gamble would pay off. And, so, he pushed forward with the tapas concept not just at Jaleo, but at various other restaurants where he experimented with small plates and other creative concepts.
The lesson here?
Before you try something new that will significantly impact your guests’ experience, take the time to listen to them. You can talk to them in-house about proposed ideas. You can listen to their chatter on social media and review sites. You can also search for commonalities in improvement suggestions they make in your feedback channels.
If you can get their buy-in on this new thing you want to try, you might be able to keep them from wondering whether it’s time for them to try something/somewhere new.
