Eating is fun. We dine out because of the experience. It’s the rush of getting your fully-customized order prepared, right before your eyes, at a small fast casual joint. It’s the excitement that comes from being surrounded by a dozen screens at a sports bar on game day. It’s the pleasure we take in getting the finest food, service, and presentation at a fine dining restaurant.
Have you ever walked into a restaurant and felt like the energy was just sucked out of you? It’s something we’ve all probably experienced at one point or another.
Having the wrong atmosphere can ruin your customers’ mood, and negatively affect their entire dining experience. Even if your food is great, if the customer doesn’t jive with your atmosphere, then psychologically speaking, they might become predisposed towards just not liking your restaurant at all.
It can happen at any point during the dining process – and there can be innumerable causes. Let’s look at one potential example that could occur at the beginning of the process, involving a customer named Brian.
Brian walks into a popular restaurant with a group of friends. He’s excited to eat there because his friends have been hyping it up for a long time, telling him “it’s the best food ever.”
The only problem is that the place doesn’t take reservations AND it’s Saturday night. Needless to say, the restaurant is absolutely packed. He’s hopeful however. The hostess says the wait shouldn’t be any longer than 30 minutes. “That’s no big deal,” Brian says to himself. He’s with his friends. He’ll stomach the wait.
He goes to find a seat in the crowded waiting area. Only one of his friends is able to grab a seat. That’s fine though. Brian doesn’t mind. He’ll stand.
He soon notices how loud it is. In fact, Brian can’t even hear his friends talking next to him. He’s packed into a corner. He’s growing impatient. After a while, he glances down at his phone. It’s been 45 minutes, and the hostess keeps insisting that “your party is next in line.”
Brian and his friends are eventually seated. They end up having a decent time. The service is good, and the food is excellent. But every time Brian thinks about eating at that restaurant, he just thinks back to that first night. All because his restaurant experience got off on the wrong foot.
Now you, as a restaurant owner, don’t have to make the same mistake that this restaurant did. You can get business from customers like Brian PLUS keep them coming back over and over again.
How’s that, you ask? Well, the first thing you can do is to examine each and every part of your dining experience through the eyes of the customer, rather than how you might perceive it. Another thing you can do is to get digital.
Improve Your Restaurant Experience With CoGoBuzz
You don’t have to go digital alone. Do it with CoGoBuzz, our state-of-the-art digital marketing service. Offering extensive WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions, our service takes enhancing your customers’ restaurant experience to a whole new level. And we do it both in-restaurant and out, directly to mobile devices.
Featuring direct messaging via text, you can send messages straight to your guests’ devices, and receive them back! Alert them of special offers, upcoming events, or even table-is-ready notifications, so that you don’t have to make customers like Brian sit in a small waiting area.
On top of that, CoGoBuzz comes packed with fully realized customer profiles for every customer that logs in to your HotSpot, automatic Facebook followers, and so much more! Check out the rest of our site to learn about all the amazing benefits of CoGoBuzz.
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Have any advice for improving the restaurant experience? Let us know in the comments!