Customer reviews are the way to future-proof your business in a competitive market. According to American Express, 88 percent of customers in 2020 read reviews to determine the quality of a company and 86 percent were willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
Why You Should Personalize Your Customer Experience
According to the experts, 80 percent of companies think they offer a great customer experience, but only 8 percent of their customers actually agree. That figure alone tells us there is still a lot of work to do.
Offering a personalized customer experience in your restaurant is more important than ever before. Personalization increases customer satisfaction and encourages customer loyalty to grow your business.
In this article, we will share how you can personalize your customer experience for great reviews that will grow your restaurant business.
Provide Seamless Payments
Your customer experience doesn’t just include the quality of table service or products on offer, it also extends into making payments. The last thing a customer does before they leave your business is make a payment, so providing a seamless payment system is perhaps one of the most important things you can do.
Seamless payments make the process of settling the customer’s bill easier and more efficient, reducing long waits for customers in your restaurant and increase the speed of service. Most customers today like the convenience of Google or Apple Pay as it saves them the hassle of carrying around a physical card and allows for contactless payments.
Offering diverse payment methods, such as contactless QR codes, allows your customers to easily make a purchase using the method that best suits them.
Act on Customer Feedback
Gathering feedback is a great way to listen and learn from your customers. However, there is no point in gathering customer reviews and feedback if you aren’t going to act on them. Use customer feedback to make positive changes that will help grow your restaurant business.
Creating a systematic approach to gathering customer feedback and acting on it is a unique opportunity to develop a customer-focused restaurant. Used effectively, acting on customer feedback in this way will help ensure you are always providing what your customers are looking for and you are constantly searching for ways to grow and improve your restaurant. It shows you care and, in turn, makes your customers care about you. It’s a win-win situation for all!
Cultivate Customer Relationships
Omnichannel personalization is becoming increasingly popular as companies fight to keep their customers for longer. Omnichannel personalization allows you to keep in touch with your customers across social media, mobile apps, websites, emails, and phone calls, to extend the customer experience between the customer and the brand.
Solutions that offer unified interactions across all business channels can help you provide more personalized customer service. Communicating in this way lets conversations become more targeted, purposeful, and relevant, enhancing the customer experience by providing a solution to their need.
Omnichannel personalization is one of the best ways to cultivate long-lasting customer relationships that gain great reviews and benefit your restaurant.
Put Your Customers First
One in three customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience. This is because more than 50 percent of the customer experience is based on emotion. These emotions are what shape and drive buyer decisions.
As a restaurant, you should be thinking about how each decision you make affects your customers. Putting the customer first in this way organically fosters a positive customer experience at every stage of the customer journey.
Putting your customers first helps you deliver a great service that boosts customer confidence and trust. Customer-centric companies that genuinely care about their customers are the ones that get great reviews and enjoy high customer loyalty.
Just be Human
As a restaurant owner, it goes without saying that your schedule is pretty full. This alone is what often causes customer service to fall to the wayside, with restaurants doing the bare minimum to get by.
While this is understandable to a degree, it can have a negative impact on how your customers see and interact with your brand. If you don’t take the time to show you really care, they won’t stick around for long.
So, do your best to cultivate a culture of open and honest communication. Take the time to train up a team that show empathy and offer invaluable customer support.
The best customer service is human. Treat people like people and you will see your business grow and succeed.
Final Words
The needs of your customers will change and grow over time, just like your restaurant. The trick is to have them growing together and complementing one another. Consistently working to keep your customers at the center of everything you do organically encourages great reviews, which will in turn help grow your business as you see customers return time and again.
Ashley Harris started her career in hospitality over 10 years ago and has a degree in Global Masters in Management. She is passionate about innovations in the hospitality and food sector and is looking to connect with other professionals in the industry. Follow her on Twitter: @Ashley_Harris91
