In today’s highly competitive economy, restaurants must act quickly, offer better quality and service to make themselves unique. Business volume cannot be sustained by merely offering a singular environment or concept. Nor will singularity allow us to plan for future growth by itself. A restaurant must be able to offer great quality foods, a comfortable atmosphere, and also great customer service for it to succeed and grow. In reality, of course, not everybody will be satisfied, and all sorts of things can go wrong. The chef could be having a bad day and burn the food, the waiter could be too busy to refill the drinks regularly and might forget to give the customer their side order until their meal is over, or the manager might decide to take a break in the busy hour, and, to make matters worse, a first-timer customer might leave upset, without having his or her complaint resolved. Do you think he or she will return? Will they recommend your brand to friends and family?
Today, with social media, an average person can have a circle of influence of 250 people! Don’t believe it? Post something on your Facebook account and see the results…
It is more important than even to resolve your customer’s complain in a timely manner, before you lose more business. Here are four easy steps to follow to help you better manage your profits;
If you have not done so, implement a Customer Satisfaction Survey program. Keep in mind that not all software is created equal. Do your homework and pick the best software out there, if you go half-way, and get feedback from your customers, but it is not easily accessible, then you have wasted your time and money and made your customer even angrier. This is because even though they provided you with their feedback, you still haven’t contacted them to resolve their issues.
Listen to their feedback and to what they have to say, read their responses to the survey questions, especially to the open ended questions. Generally, customers will make your life much easier and tell you exactly what problems they have experienced and how they expect them to be resolved; all you have to do is to listen.
When you contact your guests, be prepared to resolve their issues, and don’t be offensive! Show them that you have listened to their feedback, read through and clarify how your staff has not met their expectations. Once you have understood the situation, resolve it in their favor. Remember, 71% of customers whose complaint are resolved in their favor, will come back. You want the business, so sort out their problems, and ask them to come back. Improving Restaurants has already emailed them a coupon, and this would give them ANOTHER reason to come back.
By using Improving Restaurants’ software, you will be able to track whether that customer, who had a bad experience, came back to your restaurant or not. Track your success rate, and see if there are any improvements to b made. If there are, then make them and repeat the process again. Remember that if your system works well, then you don’t have to change it.
Tags: Increase Profit, Measure, Customer Satisfaction,
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