By: Helen Yuan and Marissa Nolan
Published: July 25, 2024 | Updated: July 25, 2024
Read time: 8 minutes
- Table of Contents
Introduction
Many in the restaurant industry grapple with the age-old question: how do you keep customers coming back to your restaurant?
It’s no secret that customer transactions are elusive in the restaurant industry, and with so many dining options, differentiation is challenging — but critical. Improving customer satisfaction is a key lever for driving business success, so it’s important for restaurants to optimize their customer experience across all touchpoints of the consumer journey.
Below, you’ll learn:
- Why customer satisfaction is important
- Best practices for providing great customer experiences
- 7 ways to improve customer satisfaction in restaurants
- Best-in-class examples of restaurant customer experience optimization
Why customer satisfaction is essential for restaurants
Customer satisfaction is the cornerstone of success for any restaurant. Beyond delicious food, factors like service, ambiance, personalization and innovation play vital roles.
Satisfied customers become repeat visitors, spending more and referring their friends. Restaurant management software company Toast found that 24% of diners discover new eating venues via word-of-mouth!
With how digital the world has become, online reviews and social media have significant influence on the success of restaurants. A single unhappy customer can have an enormous impact on a restaurant’s reputation. On the other hand, consistently exceeding customer expectations can rapidly earn rave reviews online, building a loyal base of advocates.
In short, prioritizing and improving customer satisfaction isn’t just about short-term gains: it’s a strategic imperative for long-term prosperity in the competitive restaurant industry.
Best practices for improving customer experience in your restaurant
Elevating your restaurant customer experience starts with ensuring the highest standards of food quality and consistency. You wouldn’t serve expired food or burnt burgers, would you?
Diners want to enjoy their experience from start to finish. Best practices for delivering a great restaurant experience (and fostering trust and loyalty) include:
- Be discoverable online. Nowadays, customer service starts before diners walk in the door. If you don’t have one already, create a simple website for your restaurant. Make your menu easy to read and your key information (store hours, location, etc.) simple to find.
- Pay attention to diners’ needs. When diners enter your restaurant, front-of-house staff should be attentive, anticipating needs and providing personalized recommendations.
- Use technology to streamline your operations. Digital menu boards and kiosks that can adapt to each interaction will help with upsell while robots that assist with meal prep can increase kitchen efficiency. Restaurant tech adoption is accelerating at a rapid pace and can boost efficiency at any touchpoint both at the front and the back of the house.
- Show your commitment to continuous improvement. Read and respond to online reviews on Google, Yelp or social media. Respond with care and share when you make a change. Provide the quality and consistency customers expect.
Ultimately, the best recipe for maximizing your restaurant experience is a blend of excellent food, attentive service and seamless experience. With these in alignment, guests will eagerly anticipate their next visit — and maybe even leave you a great review.
7 ways to improve restaurant customer satisfaction
1. Create a loyalty program
Loyalty programs can create deeper connections with your diners by rewarding them for every visit or purchase, often through points-based systems or exclusive offers.
By tailoring rewards to individual preferences and spending habits, you can make customer experiences even more personal, helping guests feel recognized and special.
The most effective loyalty programs:
- Are easy to use and understand
- Clearly communicate how to earn and redeem rewards
- Cater to each customer's journey
Learn more about how restaurants can increase engagement and loyalty.
2. Get your ambiance right
A great dining experience is more than the taste of the food.
How visually appealing is the plate? Is the food colorful and balanced?
What about the décor? Does it reflect the mood and atmosphere you want to convey?
Would you want to share a picture from your restaurant on Instagram?
Investing in good lighting, tasteful décor and attractive food plating will encourage customers to do your marketing for you by sharing positive exposure on social media.
Optimize your restaurant ambiance by considering your target clientele and how to deliver across the five senses at your establishment: look, sound, feel, smell and taste.
3. Survey your existing customers
The best way to identify what keeps your customers coming back (and what doesn’t)? Ask them!
Soliciting feedback from your guests through questionnaires is a low-cost way for restaurant owners to crowdsource tips to better satisfy customer needs, optimize menu items and proactively address issues before they become chronic problems.
4. Train employees well
For restaurant customers, how they’re treated by staff can often be just as important, if not more, than the quality of the food itself.
Examples of proper restaurant staff etiquette include:
- Greet customers politely. When diners arrive at your restaurant, they should be enthusiastically welcomed and quickly shown to their seats.
- Speak courteously. Staff should always remain professional, even when dealing with customer complaints.
- Address special requests. Whether it’s celebrating a birthday or accommodating a gluten-free diet, staff should always go the extra mile to ensure customers’ needs are satisfied.
5. Show your customers you know them with personalized interactions
Adding a special treat or offer shows your guests you’ve been thinking of them and significantly enhances the dining experience while building brand loyalty.
According to OpenTable, diners say that complimentary extras (69%) and seating preferences (65%) would go far in increasing customer loyalty. Meanwhile, their name (65%) and favorite drink (50%) were among the most important things diners said they want restaurants to remember. Overall, restaurants that personalize dining experiences are more likely to leave a lasting impression.
6. Innovative offerings and experiences
To stay ahead of the competition, consider how your restaurant can continuously innovate. Can you introduce new menu items? How about providing unique experiences?
Launching a new offering has the potential for huge improvements, but also for unexpected issues. It’s crucial to analyze the impact of new offerings by asking a few key questions, including:
- Will this new menu item/experience cannibalize existing sales or drive incremental benefits?
- How will this affect our pricing strategy to optimize profits and improve customer satisfaction?
To answer these questions, you can use the business experimentation process, which helps organizations test new initiatives before rolling them out more broadly. Business experiments for restaurants could include:
- Restaurant remodels
- New menu items
- Pricing adjustments
Based on a Mastercard client survey, 44% of business initiatives don’t break even. But with testing, your restaurant can feel more confident in new business strategies, stimulate innovation and maximize learnings while minimizing risks.
7. Develop and use digital capabilities
Digital menu boards. Robot wait staff. Tableside tablets. QR code menus.
New digital technologies are increasingly expediting and enhancing the restaurant customer experience, and customers are loving it.
According to a Forrester study commissioned by Mastercard, 86-90% of restaurant customers are “highly satisfied” with emerging technologies including digital payment for debit, credit, and digital wallets, digital offers and coupons, and mobile ordering and payment.
Still, deployment rates are lagging — only 36-59% of restaurants have implemented the various technologies mentioned. You and your restaurant can get ahead of the curve by investing in digitally-driven customer experiences.
3 examples of great restaurant experiences
Nobu keeps things classy and consistent
When Nobu was first founded as a partnership between chef Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa and Hollywood actor Robert De Niro, Nobuyuki’s unique culinary background in Japanese cuisine with a Peruvian twist helped him differentiate in a crowded sushi field.
Over time, signature dishes like the Miso Black Cod and Yellowtail Jalapeño have become well-known favorites. But the source of high customer satisfaction goes beyond just the food.
Today, Nobu has become synonymous with precision, personalized service, and elegance — with a global empire of hotels and restaurants across five continents. Consistency is key with Nobu: a guest in Dallas experiences the same attention to detail as a guest in Kuala Lumpur. That consistency and success stems from a philosophy built around exceeding diners’ expectations with innovative offerings, well-trained staff and a classy atmosphere.
Texas Roadhouse excels at Southern hospitality
One of America’s highest-grossing steak chains, Texas Roadhouse has consistently been considered a top restaurant for customer satisfaction across full-service restaurants in the US.
With more than 650 locations across 9 countries, it’s known for its digital ordering optimization, masterful execution of the elusive “value steakhouse” concept and warm hospitality:
- Waitstaff wear shirts that read “I love my job”
- Service is friendly
- Delicious butter rolls are complimentary
- The cuisine is hearty and quality
- Fun atmosphere includes regular intervals of line dancing
Meanwhile, technological integration such as “Roadhouse Pay” allows guests to pay with a tableside tablet, and kitchen display systems help manage customer orders and decrease wait times, leaving guests satisfied from beginning to end.
McDonald's puts people first
For years, McDonald's has been living its first company value: putting its customers and people first. Today, the fast-food chain is one of the world's most valuable brands, operating in 118 countries and serving 69 million people daily.
How does McDonald’s achieve such impressive results?
Through continuous dedication to enhancing its customer experience.
For example, McDonald's recently became one of the first global restaurants to leverage artificial intelligence (AI), integrating AI-powered decision-making technology into its digital displays, which boosted average check size using personalized recommendations.
McDonald's may have come far from its days of 15-cent burgers and drive-ins, but its legacy of business efficiency and customer experience excellence remains intact, catapulting its growth through the decades.
How to improve restaurant customer satisfaction for the long term
The restaurant industry is saturated. It’s competitive.
Providing an excellent customer experience is integral to customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction is what keeps your doors open.
To keep customers coming back, boost your reputation and improve your restaurant’s bottom line, put your customers first. Prioritize guest loyalty by regularly refreshing your employee training, listening to customer feedback and continuously refining your offerings through informed business experimentation.
Curious to learn more about how Mastercard can help your restaurant engage guests, improve customer satisfaction and boost profitability? Contact us here.
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