Customer service is a predominant aspect of a restaurant business. It definitely is a main area of concern. But have you ever given due attention to its counterpart- customer experience?
“Complete customer experience” entails offering the best service from all segments of your business, starting from the staff that takes phone reservations to the host or the hostess, the servers and the table service and the entertainment. How engaged is your staff, and is your parking service efficient? The waiting area and the ambience should be excellent, too. Are your bathrooms clean and functional? Your food has to be splendid and your service, above all, should be fast.
These factors taken together provide your diners with overall satisfaction when visiting your restaurant. All the moving parts of your business determine your customer experience.
This article will discuss a crucial feature of your restaurant which is the menu. The menu is the first thing that your customers look at when they enter your establishment, so it, therefore, has to be amiable, setting a comfortable dining mood for them.
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Below is a list of 7 unique menu ideas to provide your customers with the best dining experience.
Menu Ideas To Complete Your Customer Experience
1. Present enticing and professional photographs of your items
Your menu should be easy to read while captivating your guests’ gastronomic senses. In this case, you ought to use professional photography to display your food items.
What dishes do you serve? If you can, feature most of them in your menu. Some restaurants tend to portray only a few of their selections, but if you include more photos, you’ll enhance your customer experience.
If you particularly serve unfamiliar items, it’s better to show additional photos. These images give your patrons visual representations of the dishes you’ll serve- and be sure to accurately follow up with it in the actual dish.
Many customers tend to make their decisions based on visuals while not reading the text on your menu. Then again, you should include both photos and descriptions to appeal to all sorts of customers.
Read: What Are Restaurant Menu Clipboards
2. Add fresh and healthy items
The trend nowadays is that one dines at a restaurant as they would at home. So just like eating at home, your customers want to taste fresh and healthy dishes.
Customer experience will be enhanced in your business if you provide fresh, healthy and organic options. Highlight these selections in your menu as well, including in your online advertisements.
It makes sense to position your business as one that cares for the welfare and well-being of your customers, and you do this by offering healthy and organic food items.
Furthermore, you can incorporate local-sourced dishes. This shows your concern for the broader community. These aspects can give you an edge over the competition.
3. Highlight your exemplary food selections
Steer clear of presenting a cluttered menu because it diminishes your customer experience. What basically matters is that you highlight those items that you do well. Along this process, pare down your list.
As you reduce the clutter in your menu, focus on displaying your regular favourites and your unique dishes. Selections that you serve and prepare should be of an apt number, or else your kitchen would crank out on those times when it is very taxed.
Organize your menu by eliminating items that don’t sell and give proper due to your classic, favourites and profitable dishes. The last thing that you want to do is overwhelm your customers.
Neither is it economical nor practical for your business to have a very large menu. You’ll tend to stock too many ingredients because of this, which you could just end up tossing out.
4. Offer special deals
This doesn’t necessarily mean implementing discounts on your menu. On the other hand, you can apply special deals such as offering a list of menu items for special prices on a weekly or monthly basis. You can primarily carry these out on your unique and high-margin items.
Customers are quite appreciative of special deals like these, making them enthusiastic and loyal to dining at your establishment.
5. Describe your items creatively
A great copy can go a long way in providing a pleasant customer experience. Wouldn’t you be more enticed to eat grass-fed beef from the uplands of South Dakota instead of just a regular burger?
Your descriptions may be short and straightforward but see to it that they are creative, done by a professional copywriter.
6. Offer fair and competitive pricing
By all means, the pricing for your menu items should be fine-tuned. Make sure that it is reasonable and competitive.
While your pricing can be advantageous to your business, it has to be affordable and fair to your customers, too. You can check your competition to be able to gauge this aspect.
7. Update your menu design
Has your menu looked the same in the last 10 years? That’s a total put-off to your guests, especially if it already looks shabby, torn and dirty. It will speak ill of the cleanliness of your kitchen.
You therefore should improve and make a good representation of your brand by having your menu done professionally. Have it refreshed periodically to boost your customer experience and your bottom line.
Conclusion
Getting a good grasp of “customer experience” needs you to see from your customers’ perspective. This way, you’ll know what ticks and what should be done away with to offer them the best service and increase your profits.
