As a restaurant owner, you want your restaurant business to succeed. Therefore, understanding the experiences your customers have is essential to improving and protecting your business’s reputation. But how do you gather the feedback that is so crucial to understanding their dining experience?
As long as you use the right strategies to gather customer feedback, gaining information about how your customers feel and building a positive reputation for your business online is a simple process. This article explains everything you need to know about asking for restaurant feedback.
The Secret To Effectively Asking Customers For Feedback
There are plenty of methods that restaurants use to ask for customer feedback. Unfortunately, many of these methods return less benefit than the effort they take to implement. The secret to getting client feedback when you ask for it is making your customer feel like they matter.
Simply put, your business should be where the customer is continually delighted. Guests should receive incredible food and spectacular service when they visit your restaurant. And when their transaction is completed, the server or cashier should thank them for visiting and request that they leave a review to help your business thrive.
When you make a person-to-person request to your customer to ask for a review, they will feel like their input matters in helping your restaurant improve and attract new customers.
The server or associate helping the restaurant customer can also explain that the review will help other guests determine whether the business is right for them. As a result, their efforts will be an enormous help to everyone.
The Best Methods To Ask For Restaurant Feedback
While asking your customers directly is the best way to get valuable feedback for your restaurant, there are alternative methods you can use to improve your restaurant’s online reputation.
Emailing And Texting Customers
While asking your customers for feedback directly after a meal is the best way to get meaningful reviews, another great option is contacting them to follow up and requesting a customer review several days later. You can do this by using their email or phone number to reach out directly.
There are a few ways you can use email and text to get customer feedback. Firstly, you can always link customers directly to your Google Reviews or Yelp page to improve your reputation on those websites. This is a great way to repair a tarnished reputation or to build up an entirely new business and prove yourself in your community.
You can also provide a link to a custom feedback survey if you prefer to get feedback particular to your business. This will allow you to tailor your questions and elicit all the essential information you need to know, such as whether customers enjoy your restaurant’s new ambiance or updated menu.
Posting Social Media Surveys
If you have a decent following on social media websites like Twitter or Instagram, one of the best ways to get feedback from your customers quickly is to post a poll.
This feature is built into most social media websites and will allow you to see your customers’ most popularly held opinions and preferences in as little as 24 hours or less.
Offering A Convenient Feedback QR Code
If you want your guests to give you feedback, one of the most important things you can do is make the process as convenient as possible. Creating a feedback QR code that will immediately guide your customers to your preferred feedback form is one of the best ways to increase the feedback your restaurant receives.
The best part is that creating a QR code is extremely easy. Many online services allow you to register and create a QR code with just a few clicks when you provide the link to your Google reviews page, Yelp page, or preferred web survey. These services can cost as little as $5 per month but provide immeasurably valuable improvements to your business’s feedback efficacy.
Including Feedback Reminders On Receipts
When it comes to reminding customers to give feedback for your business, there’s no limit to your creative strategies. Many companies, small and large alike, use the space on the margin of receipts to remind customers to give restaurant survey feedback.
If you want to increase the feedback your restaurant receives, start printing a restaurant survey link or QR code on your receipts as soon as possible.
Customers will be reminded to give feedback when they take out the receipt to store it or throw it away, as many people habitually open and reread it when they find it.
Offering Incentives For Feedback
Depending on the type of feedback you’re asking for, you can offer incentives to customers in exchange for feedback. If you want additional reviews on your business’s Google Reviews or Yelp page, unfortunately, you’ll find that both services directly prohibit offering incentives for reviews.
If you decide to make your own web feedback form, however, offering incentives is the perfect way to encourage your customers to write a restaurant review — and come back for a second meal.
You can offer bonuses like free drinks or a discount on their next meal in exchange for an honest review that will allow you to improve your business where it matters.
Adding Survey Prompts To Your Public Wi-Fi Network
While the usefulness of this tip depends on what kind of business you’re running, this is a highly effective way for cafes and other restaurants offering free internet to get more feedback.
Most free Wi-Fi requires users to answer a few prompts to access the network, but did you know you can insert a feedback survey into the signup process, too?
Many businesses use the Wi-Fi sign-up process to ask customers a few custom restaurant survey prompts, including the customer’s name, email, and opinion of the business itself and staff performance.
Depending on the type of business, they may also leave a custom free text prompt to allow the customer to give additional input if desired.
And because a well-designed feedback prompt directly asks the user for their name and email or phone number, you won’t have any problems following up with your Wi-Fi users for future feedback or clarification whenever needed.
Monitoring Social Media For Mentions Of Your Business
It’s not just websites like Google Reviews and Yelp that provide invaluable insights into what your customers think and feel. Social media is also an incredibly insightful portal into the minds of your customers.
If you want to gather all the feedback you can effectively, you should monitor social media for mentions of your business.
When customers post about your business, this gives you an opportunity to assess the type of reputation your business is forming — and how you can address it. Considering how potent user-generated content is in influencing your business’s reputation, monitoring it properly is key.
And if you desire additional feedback, most social media makes it easy to reach out directly to users and ask further restaurant survey questions in their replies or direct messages. This is a great way to apply your bad review mitigation strategies and restore a displeased customer’s trust in your business.
Final Thoughts
While many methods of asking for restaurant feedback have a low return compared to the amount of effort they take, employing the right strategies can result in insightful and actionable insights.
By asking for restaurant feedback using a few simple methods, you can improve the customer experience, encourage customer loyalty, and turn a potential customer into a new customer!