Under promise and over deliver

Get to know your customer with these tips

In order to be successful, it is vital to know your customers. Knowing what your customer expects will help you deliver a service that will meet or exceed their expectations. As the saying in the hospitality industry goes, "under promise and over deliver." The ability to provide your customers with superior service will ensure that they leave satisfied, wanting to return again.

For those restaurateurs that don’t understand their customer’s expectations, the resulting negative word-of-mouth and loss of customers can have devastating effects. You’ve probably heard the statistics that a satisfied customer only tells one person, but a dissatisfied customer tells 10. The implications of this can be short term financial loss, or a tarnished brand image that has long term repercussions.

Let’s look at the following scenario that demonstrates this principle:

Imagine you have a family run café at a downtown location that serves refreshments and light fare. When the café first opened many people came to try it but after a couple weeks, traffic slowed down considerably. As the owner, you are perplexed why your café is not busy in such a bustling location. If you don’t take the time to find out who your customers are, you can miss crucial information. For example, you may have missed the fact that your customers are all business people on lunch looking for good food and quick service. Not knowing this fact, you might have understaffed your café at lunch resulting in longer waits or inadequately stocking your café.

Taking the time to really understand who your customers are can save you from damage control in the future. Even if you are working on a limited budget, you can get valuable information by investing time and energy into understanding your target customer. This information can help you improve –

• Food quality
• Menu selection
• Menu pricing and value
• Wait times
• Promptness of service
• Service
• Location

With this knowledge you can make informed business decisions that can encourage repeat business, positive feelings towards your restaurant, increased customer recommendations and increased spending in your restaurant. (Infoserv).

Ways to understand your customer

1.) Customer surveys 

Customer surveys allow you to ask strategic and targeted questions to gain insight into your customer’s perspective. With a survey you can ask several questions on a variety of topics.

You can distribute the survey via e-mail, with the bill for table service or with the food for carry out service. For a small fee (some even offer free trial packages), there are companies that help you create and distribute online customers surveys, such as www.constantcontact.com or www.surveymonkey.com.

2.) Customer Feedback Forms

Place customer feedback forms at your restaurant and on your website that allow customers to give feedback anonymously. You can ask specific questions or leave blank space for them to write their own comments.

3.) There’s also the old fashioned way of just listening to your customers!

As efficiency and speed of service have become increasingly important over the years in the restaurant industry, don’t let the customer be forgotten. Without patrons your restaurant can’t survive. Encourage your staff to ask customers for their feedback and to make the effort of passing the comments onto management. By talking to your customer, you’ll gain insight into what their expectations are. This type of first hand information can’t be elicited from a survey.

4.) Encourage your customers to share their experiences with you

You can find out when the service was great or when it underperformed and what you can do to improve it in the future. Customer testimonials are also a valuable tool for credibility and attracting new customers.

All these methods of gathering insight into your customers will help you align your restaurant’s value proposition with your customer’s expectations. Delivering your customer’s expected level of service will position you favorably in their minds, positively impacting your restaurant and ultimately your bottom line.