How to Improve Customer Experience in Your Restaurant Part 1
To say that restaurant customer satisfaction is important is an understatement. The reality is that even a bad rating can lead to a dip in revenue, implying that maintaining a high standard for customer experience is a tightrope walk where the restaurateur must balance spending on enhancing customer experience with the ROI of such efforts. To help restaurants reap the benefits of customer experience, in this blog, we will explore:
- Why customer experience matters
- The role of restaurant management systems, such as QPOS, in Experience Management
The Importance of Customer Experience: Impact Quantified
It is worth mentioning that the very idea of restaurant community building and restaurant customer loyalty efforts is to ensure that as many people as possible resonate with the business. Here are some ways that F&B enterprises can drive customer loyalty that stands the test of time:
Before diving into processes, which comprehensive restaurant management systems, particularly those with a robust restaurant POS, can optimise to ensure excellent customer service, it is important to consider how to identify customer experience.
One of the easiest ways to understand customer satisfaction around your restaurant business is to look at customer reviews. Even if restaurants can’t directly identify their weaknesses based on the reviews, they can at least begin a gap analysis or conduct a survey to learn about the service shortcomings. Hence, let’s look at the critical role reviews play in influencing restaurant customer experience, thereby affecting the business’s profit margins!
A single-star increase in Yelp reviews can generate up to 5-9% in revenue, reveals the study featured in the Harvard Business School Working Paper series, Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com.
As revenue is directly linked to footfall, it may be interesting to note the findings in a research paper published in The Economic Journal. The paper ─ Learning from the Crowd: Regression Discontinuity Estimates of the Effects of an Online Review Database ─ informs that an incremental improvement of half a star in reviews may result in up to a 49% increase in instances of a sold-out restaurant.
What’s the Connection Between Reviews & Footfall?
A survey named Connected Dining: Word of Mouth in the Digital Age by PYMNTS Intelligence indicates that roughly 46% of potential guests of your restaurant are more inclined to visit the food outlet if the online reviews are promising.
This survey by the organisation, a “recognised global leader for data, news and insights on innovation in payments and the platforms powering the connected economy,” further explains:
About 29% of diners may not visit the outlet as often if they encounter negative reviews online. Similar figures have been reported about the sway reviews have on online ordering.
The study also mentioned that after a good experience, about 39% of people surveyed feel encouraged to leave positive reviews. On the other hand, 22% of customers may post a negative review should they have had a poor experience. The force of reviews is further multiplied by social media because a key demographic, Gen Z, makes several decisions based on reviews by influencers.
Having discussed the importance of customer experience in the restaurant industry, we will look at:
- A few factors which are responsible for driving customer experience in restaurants
- How restaurant management systems and their restaurant POS modules can boost these factors
Did you know? Restaurant Billing Software, also known as POS software, is often part of a bigger suite of solutions or is a module of a comprehensive ERP
Impact of Restaurant Management Systems & Restaurant Billing Software on Customer Experience
1. Restaurant POS for Reducing Wait Time
A study published in the prestigious Journal of Operations Management examined the data of 94,404 customers visiting a popular Indian restaurant over a year. Based on the trends observed amongst the customer data, the researchers conducted a simulation experiment in which the number of tables was expanded, or the restaurant management was improved to offer an ideal experience, thereby eliminating wait time.
In this paper, called Worth the Wait? How Restaurant Waiting Time Influences Customer Behaviour and Revenue, the analysis of real data showed that when having to wait too long for a table and to be served, guests were more likely to:
- Give up on the dining experience, triggering an immediate opportunity cost for the restaurant
- Spend less time dining, which, one can assume, might influence the order volume, and the business made
- Repeat their visit after a longer interval compared to those who waited less or didn’t wait, hence hampering recurring business
In contrast, the simulation experiment suggested a staggering revenue spike of up to 15% (approximately).
This figure indicates that managing wait time, via an increase in the number of tables or a smooth reservation management system, must be a priority for restaurateurs.
For many business owners in the F&B sector, the primary conclusion from the empirical data and the idealised simulation assuming no wait time may already have been instinctively obvious. However, the study examines the impact of wait time on customer experience, i.e., the shorter the wait time, the greater the customer satisfaction, and more concretely by quantifying it.
How Can Restaurant POS & Other Restaurant Management System Modules Slash Wait Time?
Restaurant ERPs, such as QPOS, bridge the gap between the front of the house and the kitchen of the restaurant. Let’s focus on QPOS as an example for all subsequent pointers in the blog.
The software’s billing module is built to minimise the chances of common human errors. These errors include:
- Order mix-ups, i.e., the server getting confused between orders from different tables and individuals at a given table
- Poorly taken orders, forgetting to include key instructions, such as allergies, diet preferences, and other customisation requests
- Miscommunications occur while conveying the customers’ instructions to the back-of-house staff
The hardware-agnostic software is used across different devices in the restaurant, including the kitchen display, the printer/POS setup in the kitchen, and the order-taking tablets used by the service staff, creating a single source of truth for the business data.
Here are some scenarios a restaurant management system can speed up, thereby reducing wait time:
- Once the order is placed, an automated KOT (Kitchen Order Ticket) is printed or displayed in the kitchen. In this manner, the restaurant eliminates the time gap between the order placement, KOT generation at the billing counter or a printed KOT from a handheld service used by the service staff, and the KOT getting delivered to the kitchen staff.
- When additional items are requested during the meal, the final receipt can be instantly generated without causing any delay. The restaurant management system dynamically adjusts the bill amount and the tax component depending on the service changes, if relevant, and the dishes ordered. The restaurant billing software also automatically accounts for any applicable price change based on the modifications to the dishes.
- QPOS is responsible for ensuring smooth payment processing, regardless of the payment method: cash, card, or UPI. This ensures that guests don’t have to wait too long at their tables after calling for the bill, as the crowd grows in the waiting area, nor hold the line for prepaid checkouts in food outlets such as QSRs.
- QPOS not only assists in managing dine-in orders but also takeaway and food aggregator orders. Hence, the restaurant management system is vital for streamlining the order of dish preparation while optimising wait times. The food aggregator integration module of QPOS has another use; it helps restaurant managers take a call on whether and when to accept online orders based on rush and workforce availability.
While the points above shed light on a key factor behind excellent customer service, there are other considerations as well. These considerations may continue to be connected to restaurant wait time, but don’t end there.
Curious to know more about improving restaurant customer experience? It’s time to go beyond isolated restaurant billing software and embrace holistic restaurant management systems such as QPOS! To know more, click on the link for the next part of this blog: How to Improve Customer Experience in Your Restaurant – Part 2.
Meanwhile, begin your restaurant success journey with us by reaching out to our team of experts today!
To learn more, stay tuned for the next part of this blog: How to Improve Customer Experience in Your Restaurant – Part 2
