How to Improve Guest Experience in a Restaurant: 6 Practical Tips

The secret to a successful restaurant is to turn a significant number of new clients into loyal ones. After all, there is a limited number of people around your location. If you want to make a profit long-term, you need to convince people to return.

While marketing is great for attracting customers, if you want them to come back, you need to offer them a remarkable experience. On top of offering delicious food, you should make clients feel appreciated and comfortable if you want to win them over.

In this article, you will learn how to improve guest experience in a restaurant in six easy steps:

Why customer experience is paramount in the restaurant industry

Your profit is directly dependent on the amount of money clients spend at your restaurant. The better the experience, the more money they will give you. Here are some of the benefits you will enjoy once you know the answer to how to improve guest experience in a restaurant:

• Attract more return customers: if clients enjoyed every aspect of their visit, from the food and atmosphere to the interaction with your employees, they will surely be back;
• Get more positive reviews: a lot of people enjoy leaving reviews, especially if they were impressed with their restaurant visit. The positive reviews will also attract new customers, so it is a win-win situation for you;
• Happy customers will recommend your restaurant to friends and family: word of mouth is still a great marketing channel for restaurants. People will put more trust in recommendations from their close ones, than the ones from strangers;
• Helps better your business: by improving the guest experience, you create an open channel of communication with your clients, allowing them to share their feedback. You can use their tips to upgrade your restaurant and make it even more attractive for customers.

Read more: 11 Recommendations for Restaurant Improvement in 2024

How to improve guest experience in a restaurant

Offering guests an irreproachable experience is always a work-in-progress. You must always be open to feedback and change if you want to cater your business to your target audience. Use our tips to notice an immediate increase in client satisfaction:

1. Make training your employees a priority

Your employees are the face of your restaurants as they are the ones who interact with your customers daily. Therefore, they need to be trained to be at the top of their game and offer clients an amazing experience.

Here are a few topics you should cover in your regular training sessions:

• How to interact with the guests: from greeting them when they enter the restaurant, having a positive and friendly attitude and always maintaining eye contact;
• Being attentive: customers shouldn’t have a hard time getting the attention of a server when they want to order or ask for the check. Train employees to keep an eye on the tables and always try to be helpful, even with small things such as providing extra napkins or an extra plate for sharing dishes;
• How to deal with unhappy customers: mistakes happen as we are all human. But the key is how we react to them. Teach employees how to solve unpleasant situations to elevate the guest experience.

Moreover, don’t forget to incentivize your employees to help them better their performance. A bonus or extra benefits will motivate your staff to do their best.

Read more: Restaurant Staff Incentives: 10 Efficient Tips to Motivate Employees

2. Ensure your restaurant is spotless

Nothing ruins a restaurant’s reputation as fast as a food-born disease can. Even small details like spots on the window can shake a customer's trust in your business. After all, if the front of the house is not clean, why would the kitchen be?

Sometimes, the answer is the most obvious one. How to improve guest experience in a restaurant? Ensuring your place is spotless, down to the usually ignored surfaces such as under the tables or the bathroom sink.

3. Make ordering as convenient as possible

People choose to eat out or order and not cook at home because it is more convenient. Not only do they not have to cook an entire meal, but they also enjoy how easy it is to place an order and have a pleasant interaction with a server.

Therefore, if you want to enhance the guest experience, make it as easy as possible for clients to order, both in the restaurant or, from home. For this, you will need the online ordering system from GloriaFood.

It makes the ordering process a breeze both for you and your clients. At home, customers, can access your website and, in a few clicks, place and pay for the order.

At the restaurant, you can add a QR code leading to your online menu on every table. This way, clients can scan it and even order directly for dine-in, without having to wait for a server to take the order.

If you choose to add promotions (which we highly recommend if you want to increase the average order), they will be visible at the top of the menu. Clients will be able to take advantage of them even if they dine in, a fact that will surely boost their experience. Who doesn’t want to get their food for less money?

Read more: Implement these 10 best restaurant promotions right now to increase your sales

4. Create a comfortable waiting area

When you are searching for how to improve guest experience in a restaurant, one of the first tips is to get a table booking system. It allows clients to reserve a table fast and easily and you can organize your business better for the next day, knowing how many people you will serve.

Read more: 5 Benefits of a Table Reservation System and How to Implement it for Free

However, not all people prioritize organization. You will get many walk-ins be it because it was an impromptu meeting, they forgot to make a reservation, or they are really craving one of your dishes. Whatever the reason, the clients are at your restaurant and are willing to wait for a spot.

Do your best to make the waiting period as pleasant for them as possible because you don’t want negative reviews. For example:

• You can add some seats around the bar and allow people to order drinks while they wait for a table to free up;
• Don’t forget to always keep customers in the loop with small updates about how much longer they will have to wait.

5. Allow clients to provide feedback

If clients are unhappy with any aspect of their visit, it is better they tell you on the spot, where you can resolve the situation. If their discomfort goes unnoticed, they may leave a negative review that will hurt your reputation.

Therefore, have your servers ask clients if there is something else they could do for them during the meal. At the end, they should ask if they enjoyed their time or if they think something could be improved.

If you want to get more positive reviews, try the following:

• Add a QR code link on tables to the review platform of your choosing to make it easier to leave a review;
• Tempt customers with a free dessert if they show proof of a positive review.

Read more: 5 Easy to Implement Tips to Get More Positive Google Restaurant Reviews

6. Make data-based business decisions

Learning how to improve guest experience in a restaurant isn’t done just by reading well-documented guides like the one you are reading now. You can cater to your specific audience’s needs by asking them directly and using restaurant data analytics.

Check out these tips:

• Discover the Reports module from GloriaFood: it allows you to see relevant data about your business like the customer journey, number of orders, the most ordered dishes, etc. It also comes with helpful tips on how to improve your restaurant;
  Get access to valuable data about your guest’s experience Discover the reports module embedded in this online ordering system Start Now
• Ask customers on social media: if you don’t want the answers public, add a question box and your stories and have people reply to you in private with improvement suggestions;
• Use a feedback form: learn more about your clients’ preferences with targeted questions.

Read more: Creative Restaurant Feedback Form Templates + Free Examples

Final Words

Knowing how to improve guest experience in a restaurant is a must. Your clients deserve to enjoy themselves when they go out to eat and you deserve to have your place full each day and a big profit and the end of every month.

You might also like:

• 9 Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction in Restaurants and How to Use Them to Increase Loyalty
• Restaurant Customer Journey Map: How to Attract and Retain Repeat Clients
• 9 Factors Consumers Consider When Choosing a Restaurant & How to Take Advantage of Them