Are you tired of complicated bookings and inefficient reservation processes?
Read through to find a solution!
Well, with increased competition and changing times, restaurants, cafes, and basically dining service providers are finding it tough to provide exceptional customer service and an uncompromised taste of food. Are you a restaurant owner and can relate to what you just read? You’ve landed on the right article. Here, we discuss how a restaurant can create memorable experiences for its customers by optimizing its backend workflow, such as table bookings and reservations.
Repeat customers and positive reviews are the two major factors in a restaurant’s growth and success. In fact, repeat customers are willing to pay more! Also, they help you grow your business with positive reviews and word-of-mouth.
According to Nielson, 10% of repeat customers pay more than 90% of new customers.
Restaurant businesses must stand out from the crowd to retain their customers. So what’s the solution to keep the restaurant busy with repeat customers? Let’s see!
Memorable Dining Experience with Repeat Bookings
Exceeding customers’ expectations seems like the best way to become their favorite place to dine. Running a restaurant business is not only about providing great food and a pleasing ambience; it is also about providing efficient customer service and enhancing customer experience. A restaurant’s success lies in its repeat bookings and positive reviews, and they are possible when restaurants focus on the overall customer experience.
Apart from tasty and healthy food, a clean and tidy workspace, and a calm ambience, customers also expect restaurants to provide convenient backend processes, such as seamless reservation processes, table-booking systems, quick valet parking, safe and secure payment options, easy feedback processes, etc. Many restaurants often focus on the food and ambience aspect but stumble upon providing efficient backend processes. Part of the reason could be an unoptimized workflow.
We have done our research so that you don’t have to. Here is a guide to optimizing your restaurant’s workflow to deliver exceptional customer service by encouraging repeat bookings and enhancing positive reviews.
Enhance Customer Experience: Guide to Ensure Repeat Bookings
Customer experience directly affects the growth of your restaurant business. Restaurants must not compromise on the quality of food or customer service to achieve positive impressions and customer satisfaction. Consider the below steps for optimizing the restaurant’s workflow to encourage repeat bookings, enhance positive reviews, and eventually level up your business growth.
Step into your customer’s shoes
The first step to consider when enhancing the customer experience and optimizing your restaurant’s workflow is to understand your customers’ needs and expectations. Identifying the areas for improvement is crucial to designing a suitable workflow. To enhance customer satisfaction and experience, restaurant owners and managers should curate a workflow that eliminates problem-causing issues.
Step into your customers’ shoes and look at your business from their point of view. Identify the aspects of your restaurant that sway customers away and take action to improve them. Ensure that your team is aware of these details and does their best to develop the areas of improvement.
Automate the reservation and table-booking processes
An inefficient and time-consuming reservation booking process is enough to shoo your customers away. It takes them no time to turn towards your competitors if your booking process is slow and tiring. Many customers prefer restaurants that offer easy and convenient online reservations and bookings.
“Denode states that more than 90% of restaurants have seen immense growth after integrating an online reservation system.”
Wondering how you can be one among those 90% of restaurants?
Picktime is your go-to solution!
Picktime is an effective online appointment booking and scheduling system, designed to solve restaurant reservation problems. It can be set up and integrated within a few minutes without interrupting the current workflow. Picktime offers a wide range of features, such as online table-booking, scheduling, an online calendar, automated reminders, team management, a customer database, secure payments, and more.
No website? No worries! Picktime provides a free customizable booking URL that can be used by your customers to reserve tables based on availability and the number of people. Reservations and bookings can be approved manually or by default. They are scheduled in the online calendar automatically, and you are notified of the same. It also takes in payments using integrated payment applications.
Restaurant owners or managers can eliminate the tedious task of email communication and reminders as Picktime handles it without human intervention. It sends emails of confirmation and reminders so that your customers don’t forget about the reservations. An easy solution to no-shows and last-minute cancellations.
Furthermore, the team management feature of Picktime allows managers to keep a check on the staff and track their work progress. Also, after each reservation, managers can set a buffer time to clean up the space for the next customers. So much on just one platform! Picktime can be accessed anytime, anywhere, via the website and application.
Ensure excellent hospitality
Along with easy reservation bookings, ensure excellent hospitality at your restaurant. It is one of the first things your customers see when they enter your restaurant. Exceptional hospitality is also one of the first things that shape the customer’s perspective of your restaurant. It does not have to be fancy or overwhelming. A simple greeting with a smile, or addressing someone respectfully could make for a memorable experience.
Train your staff well and ensure that they treat your customers with respect and dignity. Providing a welcoming environment and a great ambiance always adds up to positive reviews and customer’s experience.
Ask for feedback and implement it
Building long-lasting impressions and genuine relationships with your customers is the secret sauce to success. And to do so, taking feedback is the go-to solution. Many restaurants don’t take feedback seriously, leading to low customer retention and no repeat bookings. Both negative and positive feedback are important to sail through the competition.
Communicate with your customers, and don’t shy away from asking for feedback and reviews. Customers will happily give their opinion on your restaurant, which you can use to improve their experience. Feedback also helps to enhance the customer experience as it reveals exactly what the customer needs.
Conclusion
Running a restaurant business is not as easy as it may seem. With the growing competition, restaurants must look for ways to upgrade their business and stay relevant in the ever-changing market. Follow the above-mentioned guide to automate and speed up your reservation bookings. Check out Picktime to leverage your restaurant business to the next level and create a memorable dining experience for your customers.