Five Ways To Improve Your Restaurant

Owning a restaurant has its challenges because there are so many aspects that must be top level. From the food, the drink, the atmosphere, the layout of the space and of course, the customer service. Here are five ways to improve your restaurant.

Be Militant When It Comes To Cleanliness

Having a clean restaurant is critical because even a wine glass with smudged lipstick will give your customers a bad impression of your establishment. That’s why you need to be militant when it comes to cleanliness, especially if you want to avoid pests. If you do get mice or any other pests, you must sort it out immediately, or you risk getting your business shut down. Hire a pest control as soon as you spot it and avoid opening your restaurant until the infestation has been completely cleared. Even if you’re making the efforts to rid the problem, a customer seeing a pest of any kind is going to quickly turn sour.

Train Your Staff Well

Customer service is something that matters most when it comes to the food industry. A lot of the customer’s experience will be decided upon by the service of your staff. If the kitchen has a bad day in the kitchen, it’s surprising how excellent customer service can stop complaints. Customers want a connection with staff who are serving them, and with excellent care and attention can lead to regular customers who will help keep your business afloat during quieter periods of the week. Take responsibility for training your staff well. There should be proper etiquette maintained in every restaurant, and this also depends on what type of restaurant you own.

Be Honest With Waiting Times

Everyone will expect to wait for their food, and if there’s a wait, then they’ll wait for the amount of time you give them. As much as it’s tempting to lie and appease them by saying it’ll take less time, be honest. Make sure staff know the regularly check in with the kitchen as orders are placed to make sure the waiting time has not risen. This can be a common issue as to why customers will get annoyed because a staff member may say one waiting time when for the kitchen it’s different. Keep communication clear at all times. The customer is going to appreciate you a lot more than if you lie. A tip for waiting times is to keep the customer busy and perhaps offer them complimentary snacks.

Use Technology

The use of technology is only getting better, and because of that, more businesses are using it more within their businesses. Consider introducing phones or tablets as a way of taking orders that can go straight to the kitchen, meaning staff can then get on with serving other tables. Online reservations are common in most food and beverage establishments now because they allow a business to have some idea of how busy the place will be over the course of opening hours. As time goes on, you can then make decisions on whether you close at any point during the day or shut the restaurant on certain days because it’s too quiet.

As always though, when it comes to technology – it can go wrong. So make sure you have a backup system in place, so everything continues running seamlessly.

Take Customer Complaints Seriously

Some people enjoy complaining, and you can probably filter those who are trying to get a freebie to those who genuinely aren’t happy with their experience. So whenever you have a genuine complaint, take this seriously. At the end of the day, word of mouth is a powerful thing, and one negative review can be hard to recover from. Sometimes it might be as easy as providing them with a free round of drinks but always go beyond the call of duty to sort out why the customer isn’t happy.

The industry can certainly be a competitive one, but with the right improvements, your restaurant can continue to grow in popularity.