Value-added resellers (VARs) and managed services providers (MSPs) know recent changes in the restaurant industry represent opportunities if they do more than merely sell solutions such as restaurant customer survey software. The most successful VARs and MSPs prioritize customer success, ensuring their clients get the greatest return on their tech investments.
This approach builds stronger relationships with your customers and positively impacts your VAR or MSP business. Bain & Company has determined that improving customer retention by only 5 percent can improve profits by 95 percent. Furthermore, a Gallup Poll revealed that fully engaged customers mean 23 percent more in wallet share, profitability, revenue and relationship growth. So, rather than simply selling a customer survey solution, educating your clients on how to get the maximum value from it will result in more satisfied clients – and, ultimately, grow your revenues and profits.
Focusing on customer success with your solutions is a smart strategy regardless of the technology. However, it’s essential with restaurant customer survey solutions that require following best practices and using optimal technology.
Here are five things to keep in mind as you deploy restaurant customer survey solutions and advise your clients on how to get the most value from them:
1There’s only one way to know how well a restaurant is doing with customer experience.
You can set up a restaurant with a kitchen display system that provides immediate feedback on how well a team meets speed metrics. In addition, the restaurant can use its point of sale (POS) data to track sales and its loyalty program data to see which rewards and promotions work the best. However, when it comes to CX, the only way to really know what customers are thinking is to ask.
Choosing a restaurant customer survey solution with the right features, such as multilanguage support, staff performance reporting, and methods for responding to customers promptly will give a restaurant the tools it needs to monitor customer sentiment closely.
2Restaurants need a way to reply immediately.
Some customer survey solutions are designed for email or web engagements. Surveys using those platforms may ask multiple questions and ask for free-form answers and notify the business in a daily report. However, that mode of surveying customers is probably not the best for restaurants.
Suggest that your clients choose a solution that asks only one or two essential questions, requesting easy yes or no answers or even enabling them to select an emoji from a scale of how happy or disappointed they are. Then, when a customer provides simple but impactful feedback when settling the check, the manager has time to respond and make things right before the customer leaves the restaurant.
3Restaurants should survey all touchpoints.
Many restaurants now serve customers who place online orders for delivery or curbside pickup as well as at the drive-thru, counter, or table. Advise your clients to choose a restaurant customer survey solution that enables feedback at all touchpoints.
Also, if your client operates multiple locations, ensure managers can access reports from channels related to all sites to provide a complete picture of customer experiences across the business. Your clients may benefit from your walking through reports with them so that they can compare performance – and maybe even pinpoint employees or teams who excel and encourage them to share their secrets for providing excellent customer experiences so the whole organization can benefit.
4In-person surveys should be contactless.
Popular legacy solutions involved the customer using a tabletop kiosk or a mobile device provided by a server to complete survey questions. After the pandemic, however, diners may prefer not to use shared devices and continuing to use them may mean that the restaurant collects less data.
Advise your clients to implement a flexible solution that works on tablets, kiosks and mobile devices but also allows the restaurant to direct diners to the survey with an SMS or a QR code printed on the receipt.
5Surveys about customer experiences shouldn’t be detrimental to customer experiences.
If a restaurant customer has just had a great dining experience, your client won’t want to detract from it with hard-to-use technology, a lengthy survey, or no response when requested.
Urge your customers to focus on one or two issues they want feedback on – or use the Net Promoter Score method of asking whether the customer would recommend the restaurant to a friend – then tracking promoters and detractors.
Help Your Clients Use Restaurant Customer Surveys to Find Success
The data that restaurants collect from customer surveys can help them identify and fix issues standing in the way of excellent customer experiences. And considering that PwC research has found that 73 percent of consumers say experience is a vital factor in purchasing decisions, the solution and guidance you provide can help your clients operate more competitively.
The restaurant customer survey solutions you provide can be the key to greater success for your clients – and to stronger relationships that help you grow your business.
