After what seems like forever, most of the world is coming out from the strict lockdown that was being enforced. This means finally, restaurants are open. And this means the customers will come flocking right?
After all, they’ve been stuck indoors, trying out their favourite recipes and failing, waiting for a chance to visit a restaurant again. Yes, all of this is true. But the way people see the world has changed drastically in the last few months. Now every experience, every trip out of the house is preceded by weighing the pros and cons of stepping out. Even though everything seems to be getting back on track, the threat and fear of coronavirus is still strong in most people’s minds.
This means, as a restaurant owner, you have to try even harder to increase revenue. But as people’s mindset about heading out to eat changes, you also have to change the way you communicate, and how you communicate, to your customers. Here, I’m going to take you through a few ways in which you can help you customers feel more comfortable about visiting your establishment, while also a couple of alternatives you should look at as a way to increase your restaurant’s revenue over and above your dine in earnings.
1. Start delivering
The first, and the most obvious step you can take to increase revenue in today’s world is to offer delivery. Most people are much more comfortable with interacting with a delivery person rather than expose themselves to the multitudes they will have to interact with if they were to visit a restaurant.
2. Focus on safety, hygiene & quality
No matter how efficient and in depth your safety, hygiene and quality standards were before the pandemic, it is important to reexamine, refine and restructure all the processes at your restaurant and ensure that the highest standards are maintained across the board. This includes regular temperature checks for all employees, everyone wearing masks and gloves, frequent hand washing, thorough and frequent sanitization of all surfaces and more.
3. Relook your dining experience
With the new social distancing norms in place, when you reopen your restaurant you would have had to already space out your table setting and only have a certain number of customers in your restaurant at any point of time. But there are other steps you can take to ensure that your customers can dine at your establishment with complete confidence that their safety is your highest priority. This includes simple things such as ensuring sanitisers and hand-wipes are offered right at the door, creating a digital menu, offering digital payment options and even offering small salt and pepper sachets instead of the traditional shakers.
4. Communicate with your customers
You can have all the highest safety and hygiene standards in place, but if your customers don’t know about them, they will still hesitate to step through your doors. Make sure you communicate all the steps you are taking to ensure the highest standards in your restaurant clearly through your social media channels so your customers are reassured that their favourite restaurant is taking the necessary precautions for their safety.
5. Get feedback your customers
Right now, no one knows what the customer wants than the customer themselves. So keep talking to your customers - on social media and on premises - and get regular feedback from them on how you can improve their dining experience or concerns even further and what steps you can take to help them feel safer. This will not only help you tailor your dining experience better, but will also show your customers that you genuinely care about them and their safety.
These are just a few of the steps you can take right away and improve footfalls, and increase revenue, at your establishment. And while yes, times are tough, as long as you keep hygiene and quality as your primary areas of focus, you will be able to show your customers that you are an establishment they can feel safe visiting - where they can relax, eat a delicious meal and enjoy their time outside the four walls of their home, worry-free.
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