Serving up a great restaurant customer experience

Opportunities to improve guest experience

A restaurant’s brand is no longer only about food. If it ever was. Now that quality, value, sanitary, location, and staff are table stakes—requirements that every restaurant should meet for guests to consider it—the ability to deliver consistently engaging, memorable experiences that drive a connection to the brand at every touchpoint is more critical than ever.

What are the emerging elements of the restaurant customer experience that matter to your guests?

• Engage me. Interact with me in a friendly, authentic way. Be hospitable and genuine with me. Treat me as a person.
• Empower me. Give me the ability to customize to my specific needs. Value my feedback and respond in an appropriate way.
• Hear me. Demonstrate awareness of the situation and acknowledge my needs. Listen to my unique needs.
• Delight me. Create moments beyond my expectations that I will remember and share. Personalize my experience.
• Know me. Remember me and my preferences. Anticipate my changing needs.

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Tackle the guest experience challenge

For restaurants in this competitive, fast-moving space, differentiating on these new and evolving experiential elements will likely separate the winners from the losers and being able to engage, empower, and delight guests won’t be a nice to have, it will be the new table stakes.

So where do you start? How do you tackle this guest experience challenge quickly, without biting off more than you can chew?

• Gather data about your customers, turn that data into insights, and place those insights into action.
• Enhance your capability to leverage digital technologies to help the right data reach the right hands at the right time.
• Develop the capabilities to engage the frontline to make fast, high-touch changes.

You already know how to make guests feel full. Now the challenge is to make them feel engaged, understood, and wanted.

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