How to improve your steps of restaurant service, enhance guest experience, and boost profitability

This blog will cover:

• Identifying the challenges restaurant management teams face when improving steps of service.
• 3 things you can do to prevent these challenges growing.

Did you know that a survey conducted by Verint, found that 55% of their participants believe there’s a disconnect between those who set the business strategy and those who carry it out. This suggests that staff either may not understand or be able to carry out the strategy put in place by senior management, in turn leading to poor service and overall guest experience.

It’s no secret that poor service can significantly affect restaurant performance. In fact,  64% of customers will switch to a competitor following a poor experience and 94% of people say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business altogether. So you’re not just deterring existing customers, but new ones as well. 

Getting your steps of service right is a sure fire way to ensure you’re delivering excellent service that keeps your guests returning. When your defined steps of service are optimised to meet the needs of your guests, you’re more likely to foster loyalty, reduce customer churn, and boost profits. 

If you’re struggling to retain guests, and feedback points to break down in overall service quality, reviewing your steps of service is an essential step you must take to improve guest satisfaction, increase restaurant profits, and reconnect with your team.

If you’re facing challenges with your steps of restaurant service, this article delves into some of the most prominent challenges restaurants come up against when improving their steps of service, and three things that senior managers can do to resolve them.

Challenges restaurants face when improving their steps of service

Setting up your steps of restaurant service isn’t easy and it can be even harder to understand whether they’re making a positive difference to your guest’s experience. Here are a few common challenges restaurants face when it comes to their steps of service.

Staff not completing steps of service

Any time steps of service are not met it impacts guest experience. By consistently monitoring compliance of your steps of service you can ensure all steps are being carried out. When monitoring compliance you should manage team expectations regarding all steps of service being completed and train your staff to ensure all steps are undertaken accurately and effectively. 

It’s important to understand whether your steps of restaurant service are positively impacting your customers. If they’re having a negative effect you should review and optimise them, if this still doesn’t have your desired impact removing them from your steps of service is the best course of action. If they’re having a positive impact you should consistently monitor and optimize them to ensure you’re delivering the best experiences for your guests.

Not knowing what to deliver and how to deliver it

Knowing which steps of service to deliver and how to do so can be difficult. It can create a sense of paralysis and stagnation within restaurants, making it harder to deliver excellent quality guest experiences. 

When positive guest experiences are lacking they can harm profitability and derail customer satisfaction across all restaurant locations. 

When there is a lack of defined service procedures it can lead to confusion among staff, increased errors, slow service and operational inefficiencies. This can cause increased labour costs and reduce table turnover, both of which affect your profits. 

Research by the National Restaurant Association found that labor inefficiencies, partly caused by inconsistent service procedures contributed to a 12% increase in operational costs in the past year. This highlights the importance of identifying what your customers are looking for and expect from you and properly defining your steps of service.

The ability to recover a customer after a bad experience

Saving the customer after they’ve had a bad experience is notoriously difficult. This is why it’s key to perfect your steps of restaurant service, in order to prevent poor customer experiences from being delivered. 

By ensuring all steps of service are completed you’re preventing unhappy guests from leaving your restaurant. This will enhance guest satisfaction and business revenue as you’ll spend less time trying to please unhappy customers. Enhancing guest satisfaction will guarantee repeat customers and new ones encouraged by positive reviews or conversations with friends and family, ultimately boosting revenue further.

3 things you can do to prevent these challenges growing

 1. Ensure all staff members are adhering to your steps of service

Ensuring all of your staff are adhering to your steps of service is crucial.  When every team member follows the same procedures, it creates a seamless and professional atmosphere, reduces the likelihood of errors, and ensures that each guest receives the same level of care and attention. 

Ensuring a standardized approach to service is taken allows for smoother operations, better teamwork, and increased efficiency. This ultimately contributes to higher profitability and a more harmonious work environment.

2. Use technology effectively

When running a successful restaurant, technology is your best friend. If you’re not keeping your customers happy and not staying on top of your restaurant insights you risk falling behind your competitors. Examples of technology to implement in your restaurant include:

• Table management systems - These can help you effectively manage reservations without needing to complete lots of manual tasks that can lead to errors and/or mistakes.
• Customer feedback platforms - Customer feedback platforms like Yumpingo allow you to understand the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of your customers. This enables you to make changes that are likely to positively affect your guests.

3. Use customer feedback

Customer feedback and insights can give you the information needed to understand the types of service and quality of service your guests are looking for. 

When you act upon your customers' feedback you're likely to improve guest satisfaction, enhance your reputation and make your customers feel valued. Studies show that 48% of customers believe that if a brand responds to complaints, they increase their chance of a purchase being made, highlighting the importance of acting on customer feedback and continuously making improvements.

Customer feedback platforms enable you to access insights surrounding staff performance and food and service quality. Upon review you may find that some of your steps of restaurant service are resonating with your guests and others may not be. By continually optimizing your approach you’ll boost guest satisfaction and grow profits.

Factors impacting guest experience

We’ve found the following factors positively impact guest experience:

• Speed of service.
• Food quality.
• Staff and how they interact with guests.
• The ambience of the restaurant.
• How comfortable the dining experience is.

We also discovered the following situations negatively impact guest experiences:

• Customers disliked their dish.
• It took too long to get food.
• The food didn’t meet their expectations.
• It took too long to get a drink.
• Staff were slow to take orders.
• Guests disliked their drink.
• Staff were not attentive. 

At Yumpingo we’re here to help you improve the efficiency of your restaurant through enhancing and simplifying the way you view restaurant customer service data. 

If you’re looking to optimize your steps of service we can:

• Distribute surveys to guests to gather valuable customer service information and insights.
• Support the introduction of new service styles like takeaways or fine dining options and measure their impact. 
• Help you take a pragmatic approach to the implementation and validation of technology within your restaurant

Yumpingo are the perfect partner to help you enhance your restaurant operations and boost profits. Book a meeting today and discover how we can help your restaurant reach new heights.