Most people eat out to have a social experience and not to feed themselves; in these cases, "eating out" time becomes a precious moment to devote to oneself, to share with friends, colleagues, and family. Many people like to try new restaurants and appreciate their design, hospitality, service, food, and location, all these aspects put together enhance the Food experience in the Restaurant.
In recent years, especially for millennials and the under-50s in general, spending on eating out has increased significantly; however, competition has also increased greatly. Understand How to find new customers for a restaurant it is possible and, with the right strategy, excellent results can be achieved.
Once a new customer is acquired, however, it becomes critical to know how to retain them over a long period of time.
The best way to To retain a customer in your restaurant, by having him return periodically, is to have him have a positive experience every time he chooses to eat at your establishment.
Having made this clear, let us then see how to improve the Restaurant Food Experience.
We know that each restaurant has its own "soul" its own concept and consequently, its own target audience. However, there are general aspects that you need to pay close attention to whatever the type of your restaurant is, to make sure that the customer has a great experience.
- Concept, design and atmosphere
- Hospitality and service
- Presentation and quality of food
1. Concept, design and atmosphere
The restaurant's logo, exterior sign, color scheme, furniture and lighting choices, room division, background music, staff uniforms, the
location, the menu offerings, all of these elements create a coordinated image of the restaurant by creating the atmosphere that you experience inside. All must be coordinated with the mission that drives your food and wine project, in this way you will be able to attracting and retaining customers on target with your type of catering.
Concept
The concept (or restaurant concept), is the food and wine project you plan to start and run. The atmosphere you create in a restaurant and the related food experience is simply the result of developing the chosen concept. Every decision you make, from the choice of employees to the development of the menu, from the interior design to the signage
external, should be a normal consequence of that idea.
If concept, design, and atmosphere are consistent and communicate the personality of the Brand, you have a very good chance of giving customers a memorable food experience.
Restaurant Furnishings
Every piece of furniture chosen should be an expression of the type of restaurant and cuisine being proposed. In Italy Old Wild West, has made furniture the defining element par excellence. The concept revolves around the idea of "steakhouse" in the old west, consequently you can eat inside an Indian tent, rather than in a corner of the saloon, etc.. From the entrance, through the halls, including the bathrooms, everything is reminiscent in decor of the old west seen in Sergio Leone's films.
Restaurant lighting
Restaurant lighting plays a crucial role in creating the right atmosphere. You will have often seen how bright lights and bright signs are favored in fast food restaurants, soft and warm lights in romantic restaurants, and so on. Lighting should also be an expression of the restaurant's concept. Generally, bright lighting is not conducive to a good experience for guests.
Music in the restaurant
If you choose to have background music playing in your restaurant, again, you must choose music that goes very well with the atmosphere and concept you have chosen. I have often walked into seemingly fine restaurants and found heavy music inside; conversely, I have come across family pizzerias with music totally out of context.
Music contributes greatly to the restaurant food experience. Generally however, loud music is never the ideal choice for a good dining experience. In this case, customers struggle to talk to each other, raise their voices, and additional noise is created.
2. Welcoming and service
All of us as customers love to feel pampered, acknowledged and given attention. Your customers like this, too, and it would be counterproductive to treat them as mere "numbers" exclusive sources of revenue. The opportunity to provide a pleasant experience begins from the moment your guests cross the restaurant threshold to the moment they leave.
What features do customers value most in the service?
Reception in the restaurant
A warm and sincere greeting, someone from the staff who introduces themselves politely and escorts customers to the table is certainly a good way to begin service. Especially in restaurants with a lot of place settings, on days when it is full, it can happen that customers who come in are ignored for several minutes until they are the ones spatially looking for a staff figure. This is definitely not a good way to start service.
As a restaurant owner and manager, in addition to training your staff, I recommend that you select them well when hiring. your staff should be akin to the concept of the restaurant, the amount of work required, and the type of customers you receive.
Call customers by name
To emotionally engage restaurant customers and make them feel an integral part of the Brand, it would be appropriate to call them by name. In most cases, customers like to be recognized when they frequent a restaurant habitually. In restaurant businesses with a few seats, you could introduce yourself and call newly acquired customers by name as well, this is especially so if the type of restaurant is informal and familiar.
According to a study published by the journal Brain Research, hearing one's name triggers brain activity in the middle frontal cortex of the brain (which is associated with social behavior), the middle and superior temporal cortex (which is associated with long-term). Contextualizing this to restaurant neuromarketing, this means being more likely to make the customer feel comfortable and build long-term loyalty.
Remembering a person's name is one of the six quickest ways to connect with your interlocutor, and with this predisposition to listen, they are more likely to follow your suggestions (as when your waiter suggests a wine that goes well with their dish, for example).
Suggest dishes on the menu based on guest preferences If you have customers who return to the restaurant on a regular basis, a good habit is to recommend dishes based on their regular choices. In this technology is on your side, There are many crm and restaurant management systems that allow you to create customer cards. In these cards are all the information you need, notes included, that help you personalize your customers' food experience to the fullest. This is a great opportunity! Having an idea of their preferences and the menu items they usually choose will amaze all your loyal customers.
Quality and timing in service
Throughout the service, the wait staff must be attentive to customers' needs, be empathetic and show love for their work. That said, there is to be highlighted how important a role the kitchen also plays in the quality of service. Indeed, there is no worse thing than making customers experience long waits, waiting for dishes that never arrive. Service times are a key component in ensuring a good food experience in the restaurant. Again, these must be times that are coordinated with the type of restaurant. In a fast food restaurant one cannot wait more than 5 to 10 minutes to be served, in a pizzeria or restaurant the averages are slightly higher.
3. Food quality and presentation
Although today it is no longer enough just to cook well to ensure the success of a restaurant business, it is still the aspect that has the greatest impact on customers' choice on whether or not to return to your restaurant. In addition to this, the type and quality of the dishes you offer characterize your food and wine offerings, and again the choices should be consistent with the concept you chose at the outset.
Unifies the preparation process
In order to standardize the process of making the dishes on the menu, it is a good practice to create a card for each dish, with the ingredients, preparation and a photo of the final result, which will be useful for the serving. This will ensure uniformity of flavors and aromas for the loyal customer, avoiding the inconvenience of ordering the same carbonara as last time, but finding it slightly different.
Impact to stimulate
"You also eat with your eyes," this saying reminds us how important it is to plate what is cooked well. In this way, in addition to making the customer happy, we stimulate them to take pictures of the dish and share them on social media, tagging the restaurant. Hence the term was born, creating "Instagrammable" dishes. All this increases the popularity of the Brand on social in a viral, free and spontaneous way.
Last, when the waiter serves the dish to the customer, he must be prepared in presenting it in the best way. Use the right words to enhance the raw materials and convey the quality and passion with which it was conceived and cooked.
4. Conclusion
There is a lot of competition in the restaurant industry. In recent years in Italy, the number of restaurant businesses has increased and the number of population is decreasing. Acquiring a
new customer is not easy and comes at a cost; retaining them for as long as possible is the least you can do.
This is precisely why improving the Food Experience within the restaurant is what can ensure the medium- and long-term success of a restaurant business. On the contrary, making the customer have a negative experience would negate all the "efforts" put in to acquire the customer. When you think of the food experience, always do it from the client's point of view.
I hope I have given you some interesting insights to improve the food experience within the Restaurant, but more importantly having made you think about how important it is to set up a restaurant business that is customer-oriented.
