Customer experience and customer satisfaction is vital for any restaurant to be a success. After all, no-one wants to return to a restaurant if they receive poor levels of service.

This means that any restaurant can benefit from improving customer experience during the dining process. To help you to make sure that you are offering the very best service possible we have put together the 9 ways to improve restaurant customer service. All to make sure that your customers are happy ones.

There are no fast fixes for great customer service

Excellent customer service comes over time. Whilst you can give it a real kick-start by building a culture of amazing service, maybe making some impassioned speeches to your staff.  You will need to take your time and work at it each and every day.

Have all the tools that you need

A team is only as a good as the tools they have. This is particularly true when it comes to restaurants. Your staff should have access to plenty  of the basic tools, such as plates, glassware, silverware. Not only this but you should also have an up to date inventory of the food and beverages in stock. Failing to do this could lead to some real issues in delivering to your customers. 

Set out some clear goals of what you expect

There are a number of restaurants that expect their staff to work without any clear guidelines or any employee handbook. Whilst you may not think that you need one if you are a small restaurant, you could really benefit from having some goals set out for them to follow. That way they will know what you expect from them and their own top priorities.

Hire the right people

The staff that you hire could make or break your restaurant. So make sure that you choose people who understand what it takes to deliver excellent customer services. Whilst you may usually opt for someone who has the right experience, you could be missing out on a newcomer to the industry with a real heart for customer service.

Set the best example to your team

We cannot expect our staff to deliver amazing service if we too don’t make the effort. Take on board your own expectations and work on your own approach. Not only to your customers, but also to your staff. Make sure that you speak to them in a way that you would expect them to, giving them the best example to follow.

Encourage great performance

No matter who you are, the chances are that you will love nothing more than being rewarded when you do well. This is true for your staff. A great way to motivate them is to offer a reward when they have given a great performance. This will have a knock on effect on the service that they deliver to your customers.

Explain the idea of going the extra mile

One of the basics of customer service is going that extra mile. However, for some this isn’t always an easy to understand concept. After explaining the idea of going the extra mile and delivering some extra special service, ask your staff how they believe that they can best do this? Their ideas may be better than anything that you could come up with.  

Make sure your website is up together

There is a good chance that your customers will visit your website in order to find out more about what you can offer. This means that it is vital that your website is not only perfectly designed, but that it contains all the information that they may need.

Ask for customer feedback

How can you improve your service if you don’t know where you are going wrong? Make sure that you ask your customers for feedback on how you have performed and take on board any recommendations that they make.

Hopefully these 9 tips have helped you to discover just how you can offer the very best customer service at your restaurant. So, why not try them out and see if you can have a whole host of happy customers?