Improving customer service in your restaurant is incredibly important, seeing as how it affects the customer experience. And since customer experience is the main determiner when it comes to whether people will re-visit your restaurant or not and return guests are your main source of revenue. All in all, in order for all of this to work, it’s not enough for your customer service to be good, it needs to be near perfect. It needs to be excellent. With that in mind, here are five tips for excellent customer service in our restaurant.

Quick response

Regardless of the industry, the importance of a quick, adequate response is immense for overall customer satisfaction. However, in the hospitality industry, this priority is even greater. Why? Well, because people are often hungry or trying to impress the person that they’re having dinner with, which means that they’re anxious as it is. As soon as something starts going against the plan they might start panicking. Still, this is your opportunity to shine and save the day with your quick response. Still, for this to work, your entire team needs to work like a well-oiled machine.

Trained staff

The peculiar thing about customer service in the hospitality industry lies in the fact that they’re probably the primary service providers. What this means is that if there’s a problem, your customers will first ask for a waiter and then request to speak to a chef or a manager. Either way, you need to ensure that you make the right selection of people for the job, as well as that they’re properly trained for customer service.

A worst-case scenario is something that you need to focus on in particular, seeing as how, when things run smoothly, people won’t have the need for customer service. In order to further facilitate this interaction, provide your team with proper uniforms, as well as look for reliable name labels printing services that will help your staff look distinguished and professional.

Informing them of the accurate wait time

This one here is crucial. You see, the problem with the expediency lies in the fact that the end product usually isn’t as good. This is especially true with meals that need to be put to rest. For instance, a properly cooked steak needs to rest for at least 10 minutes for all the juices to get distributed in order for your customers to experience its full flavor. The problem with this lies in the assumption that your guests are in a hurry.

You’re not at a fast food venue, they’re at the restaurant and they most likely want to talk while enjoying the appetizer until the meal gets ready. In order to set their mind at ease, at least tell them when their meal is going to arrive. Needless to say, give them a pessimistic estimate, seeing as how a meal arriving earlier is always a welcome surprise. On the other hand, making them wait for longer might significantly diminish their customer experience.

Ask for comments

The most important thing you need to understand here is that when asking for comments, you need to be ready to hear what they have to say, regardless if it’s going to your favor or not. Either way, the impact is positive. Everyone wants to have their opinion heard, regardless if they just want to say that they’ve had a good time. Feedback is the most reliable way for you to improve the flaws in your enterprise but it’s also a way to instantly improve the customer experience.

Respect your regulars

They say that in the retail, it costs you five times less to make an old customer return than to make a new customer. In the hospitality industry, this is even more obvious, due to the fact that people grow accustomed to certain meals and develop a fondness for your staff.

Sometimes they feel a certain sense of accomplishment when bringing someone else to the place, so that they can share this knowledge with them, like a well-kept secret. By paying respect to your regulars, having your staff memorize their names or treating them with some freebies, you can further enhance this strong bond.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that unless you can provide your customers with great service, they really have no reason to come back. If you do orders, they’ll just do that instead of coming, which ensures that you lose all the revenue that would come from the appetizers and the rest of the things they would order on the spot. Also, you would lose a potential word of mouth recommendations, which are quite invaluable. Therefore, it would be better to just focus on your customer service.