How to Effectively Gather and Utilize Restaurant Customer Feedback

Introduction

You run your restaurant to the best of your ability and with the resources at hand. Sometimes, a kitchen malfunction occurs, or someone may call out, leaving you short-handed.

Ultimately, though, you never really know how well you're doing without garnering restaurant customer feedback.

Do you know how to encourage your customers to honestly tell what the deal is? Once they've stated their peace, what are you doing with that information?

In this guide, we'll explain the sources available for gaining insight into the customer experience. We'll also cover how to turn restaurant customer feedback into action.

What is restaurant customer feedback?

Restaurant customer feedback is the opinions, comments, and evaluations from diners. Anytime a customer lets you know something positive or negative about your restaurant, it better informs you on what's working and what's not.

Some types of restaurant feedback include:

• Overall satisfaction
• Food quality
• Level of service
• Value for money
• Cleanliness and hygiene
• Product packaging (if you offer a takeaway service, for example)
• Ambiance
• Staff professionalism and friendliness
• Online ordering and delivery

Why is restaurant customer feedback important?

Restaurant customer feedback is vital to maintaining and improving your business. It helps keep you informed on areas like how to craft your menu for a better experience.

Since 2014, there have been over 1 billion reviews and ratings posted to Tripadvisor alone. Online reviews, however, are only one source of customer feedback. Comment cards, online surveys, and more all make up a rich pool of customer data.

Customer feedback helps drive many benefits for your restaurant:

• Understand customer preferences: no one knows what your customers want better than themselves. Customer surveys, comment cards, and other forms highlight potential issues and opportunities.
• Improve how you operate: feedback gives you deeper insights into the running of the business. You may discover new ways to work with greater efficiency. For example, customer feedback might show that you need to improve your online ordering and delivery processes, leading you to implement delivery management software to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
• Enhance the customer experience: customers like being listened to and receiving personalized experiences. Encouraging reviews from diners helps them feel important and also raises the bar for future customers.
• Make life easier for your team: if your customers are happy, your kitchen and service teams are happy.  
• Keep up with the competition: your competitors listen to customer feedback even if you're not. Take constructive criticism on board. Level up your restaurant to stay in front of the competition.

How do you gather customer feedback?

You have dozens or hundreds of covers moving through every service. Logistics CRM software can play a crucial role in efficiently managing this process by tracking and organizing feedback from various channels, ensuring no customer insights are missed. How do you ensure every 2-top to 20-top has the opportunity to give their thoughts on the dining experience?

Let's check out several sources for gathering restaurant customer feedback.

Direct in-person feedback

It's not cutting edge, but the easiest way to find out what your customers think is to ask them during the meal. Train your servers to regularly check in with tables and find out if anything has gone awry. 

If a dish comes out cold and no one returns to the table for 20 minutes, well, someone likely ate a cold, unhappy meal. They may not have had the chance to let you know, but they may tell friends, family, or online customers. 

Check-backs give your team a chance to learn what customers like and dislike in real-time. They're an opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Restaurant surveys

Restaurant surveys can be conducted using various methods. To garner customer opinions, you can ask multiple-choice, ratings, and open-ended questions.

In-person surveys/comment cards

In-person restaurant surveys are the "analog" feedback option. Comment cards can be set on each table or placed by the server at the end of the meal. It's usually best to keep these straightforward with a set of questions such as:

• Did we exceed your expectations today?
• Why or why not?
• What can we do to improve?
• Would you recommend us to your friends and family?

Leave an optional box for customers to leave contact information and reach out to those who give permission.

Online Surveys

Online surveys offer a convenient way for customers to fill out feedback forms at any time. They present a simple, cost-effective way to reach out and improve your customer contact rate.

Online surveys can be hosted on your website or with a tool like Survey Monkey. Add a link or QR code to each receipt. Your serving team can also encourage customer feedback by mentioning the online survey when dropping off the bill. Alternatively, you can use a restaurant reservation system to text the survey link directly to their phone.

You can also email feedback forms as survey links or documents. Or, consider integrating a live chat feature on your website where customers can instantly share their dining experiences and receive immediate responses.

Online reviews

Online reviews differ from other customer feedback tools in that your business doesn't necessarily host them. Other sources of restaurant reviews include Yelp, Google Maps, and Facebook. Consumer-generated content, such as photos and videos shared by diners on social media platforms, also contributes to shaping your restaurant's online reputation.

Positive reviews

Positive reviews from online sites are always a good thing. Respond to every good review to engage with your customers. Hopefully, you'll encourage them to say something nice about you the next time they dine at your restaurant. 

Negative reviews

Responding to negative reviews promptly is the best way to mitigate the situation. Review trackers found that the average response in the restaurant industry was only 65%.

You want to respond to as many online reviews as possible but prioritize the negative ones.

Sure, some people just can't be pleased, and others are online trolls. Either way, responding to negative reviews shows website visitors that you are willing to reach out, gain clarity, and improve. 

Social media

A recent report projects there will be over 327 million social media users in the US by 2027. That means roughly 9 out of 10 Americans are engaging with brands and businesses on social media. 

Mentions

Social media tags and hashtags place your business in public discussions daily. Of course, when your restaurant is mentioned on Twitter or Instagram, it's not always good publicity.

Again, it's about turning lemons into lemonade. If someone is blasting you on a social network, you can respond and get to the bottom of the issue.

For example, let's say you take part in a public discussion where you apologize and offer a free meal to a concerned customer. The public interaction shows other users that you know how to take care of customers. You can also take any feedback on board and relay it to your team.

How do you stay on top of your social media mentions? You could have your social media manager spend all day checking through your accounts.

Or, even better, you could implement a social media listening tool. It will make sure you don't miss any praise or complaints while also tracking your overall reputation on each platform. 

Post content and engage users

Social media is a two-way street. You don't need to simply wait and respond. Be proactive. Create engaging content that encourages your followers to voice their opinions. Post photos of new menu items, promotions, and events.

You can use social media posts to collect customer feedback with:

• Quizzes
• Question stickers
• Live Q&A sessions
• Polls
• Clickable links to surveys

Focus groups

Focus groups are an assembled cohort of people who represent the diversity of your target audience. They participate with your marketing team in a group discussion. Topics covered include your menu, branding, promotional campaigns, and overall experience. Focus groups are a great way to conduct research before launching a go-to-market strategy for a new menu or promotion. 

Some may think that focus groups are only available to corporate restaurant enterprises. While you may not have huge resources, you can gather a group of family and friends from the entire team. Sit down with your humble focus group over a meal and get valuable feedback.

Suggestion boxes

Restaurant suggestion boxes represent a low-pressure way to encourage customer feedback. Customers simply fill out anonymous cards and share any ideas for improvement or innovation. 

Periodically empty your suggestion boxes and separate them by importance. You can share them with the team before service starts or winds down.

Suggestion boxes work best when placed in a common, easily-seen location. This is typically near the cash register or the entrance. Your front-of-house team can also point it out to customers.

POS system

Your restaurant's point-of-sale (POS) system can also be a source of customer feedback. Many systems allow you to streamline things like online surveys and review management. 

Tableside feedback

Many POS systems allow customers to scan menu QR codes and order straight from a mobile app. You can also share a PDF online that customers can fill out at the table.

Some businesses may place a tablet directly on the table. Customers can also make payments through the POS service. You can use this opportunity to ask a few questions or provide a link to an online survey.

Tableside surveys help you get instant feedback while the dining experience is fresh in customer's minds.

Mailing lists and automated prompts

Platforms such as SpotOn Restaurant POS let you easily capture and build customer email lists. Use these to send out surveys and feedback forms. This service also enables you to reward participants with in-store and online discount codes.

SpotOn's POS systems also make it easy for you to manage online reviews from a simple dashboard. You can click on any customer review and instantly respond to gather more feedback. You can also use automated prompts for customers to rate your business after any online interaction.

For example, if a customer signs up for a loyalty program, you can ask them what they think of the rewards it offers.

How do you utilize customer feedback in your restaurant business?

Alright, so now you've got plenty of information about what your customers want and what they think of your business. How can you sift through all that feedback to find the gold?

Follow these simple steps to implement customer feedback in your restaurant.

Analyze feedback for patterns

Once you begin the feedback-gathering process, you've likely got all kinds of input from a variety of sources. You might have yes or no answers from comment cards, multiple choice answers from online surveys, and open-ended online reviews.

Categorize feedback by topics such as food quality, service, ambiance, and value. Next, look for patterns. For instance, many customers say the food takes too long to come out, while others state their food was cold. You can relate these two issues to the same overall problem.

Use business tools to streamline the process by using keywords to highlight and categorize feedback. Sentiment analysis features automatically divide reviews into "positive" and "negative."

Prioritize based on frequency and weight

With the data staring you in the face, you can now prioritize feedback. Near the top of the list will be the most common complaints or suggestions.

However, you must also weigh feedback categories by importance. If people say the food is awful, then the ambiance likely won't save the experience.

Make improvements

Use customer feedback to drive positive change in your restaurant. Start with the most pressing issues and then move on to the next area of improvement. Don't just make one fix and decide everything is fine.

For example, you've worked with the kitchen to design a menu with shorter cooking times. This will cut down on food arriving at tables late or cold. However, you're not out of the woods yet. Customers also mentioned difficulties paying the bill, so that's your next issue to look at.

Monitor changes and adjust 

Once you start making changes, it can be easy to forget about gathering more feedback. Use surveys and comment cards to find out what customers think of your new changes, such as a menu refresh.

Consider using OKR software to monitor and quantify results. Keep collecting customer input and use it to steer the ship toward a better dining experience.

What are some restaurant customer feedback best practices?

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of customer feedback.

Make it easy

Foodies and frequent diners are well-versed in the various forms of feedback surveys. Other diners may only venture out occasionally. Reduce friction by keeping surveys short, sweet, and simple to use.  

Incentivize customer feedback

Show your customers you value their opinions and time by offering a reward for submitting feedback. You can, for example, offer a discount or free appetizer as an incentive. Another option is to include surveys as part of your loyalty and customer rewards programs.

Use the right tools

Use the right tools for restaurant managers. Social media listening tools and a POS system like SpotOn make online review tracking easy. These tools allow you to keep track of your online reputation while also allowing you to respond rapidly to mentions or customer reviews with one click.

Listen to restaurant customer feedback and grow your business

There's no substitute for improving the dining experience of your restaurant. You need to encourage your customers to let you know what you do well and what you can do better.

Follow this guide to promote customer feedback and put insight into action. Use the survey and feedback weapons of your choice. Stay alert and active on social media platforms and review sites, and remember to leverage the right tech. Before you know it, you'll be turning those rare negative reviews into exponentially more positive reviews.