We all remember these nights or days where we used to go to restaurants and gather the family to eat and share our stories and laughs and create our most precious moments and memories.

Dining at a restaurant is always an experience by itself and for restaurateurs, it only means one thing: you should do your best to make it an unforgettable one for customers.

Offering distinguished customer service is a long process and it has to be a persistent one. Customer service is simple, yet it holds different aspects.

You may think that customer service begins with the customer’s visit to the restaurant and ends with their departure. This might be true in the past. In today’s world and generation, you need the extra effort to maintain the connection between you and your customers.

You know that the smallest thing makes the biggest difference and builds the strongest relationship with customers. A genuine, attentive and unique customer service in the hospitality sector is the key to creating value for businesses especially for quick service restaurants where the waiters don’t really have the chance to interact with customers for longer periods of time.

How to create a distinguished customer service away from service table?

Create a comfortable ambience

Away from the interaction between customers and waiters, the atmosphere in your restaurant is important to reflecting a good environment leaving your customers comfortable enough to come again and visit you.

When we say a good ambience, it means the furniture, the music and the decoration also.

The furniture should be aesthetically appealing and reflecting the concept of your restaurant, but it equally should have utility. The décor should be enticing while creating peace of mind to customers so they feel relieved when they enter your restaurant.

When it comes to colors, it depends on the purpose. For fine dining restaurants you may want to create warmth through earthy colors while in small restaurants, you may want to make the place looks bigger through light colors and mirrors.

Interact with your guests online

As mentioned earlier, customer service nowadays isn’t restricted to in-house service. You have to work on creating and maintaining the connection with your customers while they’re at work, home or with their friends.

You should exist in the back mind of your customers whenever they think of food and dining out or ordering.

Interacting with your customers online means constant posting of pictures, stories and promotions. Posting interesting facts and showing solidarity and concern with certain social matters is always advisable.

Aside from your posts, responding to customers’ inquiries and comments whether negative or positive is a must.

Adopt technology

Technology offers you tools to manage and run your business efficiently even when the feature incorporated isn’t directly related to your customer service like in accounting systems.

Many tools are available for you to use to improve your customer service.

Custom relationship management CRM that enables you to offer a more personalized experience with your customers,

reservation management feature that runs your reservations for more accurate occupancy while handling cancellations and increasing your footfall if properly implemented and

online ordering that offers clients the convenience of enjoying your meals from the comfort of their own home.

These are few of the automation tools that you can benefit from in addition to an integrated POS software including inventory management and kitchen management software.

Ask for feedback

Even if you’re doing just fine!

Ask for customers’ opinion about different matters in your restaurant. The environment, the staff, the food, the wait time, the cleanliness, the delivery services.

Absolutely everything!

Ask their feedback and implement their most common suggestions. It’s the only way you can hear your customers’ true opinion and show them that they matter.

For this purpose, use digital comment cards that enable customer to share their feedback with you without revealing their identity. You can tailor the questions to fit your needs.

Customer service is your responsibility and so is delivering an exquisite customer service that creates the key to your differentiation from competition. Rely on technology to facilitate your work and run your business efficiently.