WHY Your Customer Experience Is EVERYTHING!!
The quality and consistency of your guest experience determines your success. Sure, you know that but grasping the reality and implications of this fact can be a powerful reminder of what the focus should be every day. Take a restaurant that consistently produces outstanding guest experiences. Chances are very high that they also produce lots of repeat customers who tell friends, colleagues and others about how good their restaurant is. Said another way, outstanding guest experience create the two most important assets in business 1) customer loyalty and 2) positive word of mouth advertising. A survey conducted. highlights the power and importance of word of mouth advertising today. It found that "92% of customers worldwide trust recommendations more than any other form of advertising (up from 74% in 2007)". In our social media connected world, Word Of Mouth (WOM) is far reaching, impactful and can have serious consequences both good and bad to the future of your restaurant. Consider the probable outcomes when a new customer come into your restaurant and leaves after having either an extraordinary, good to average or bad experience. Obviously, after a bad experience your chance of a repeat visit is slim to none and while those customers may generate some word of mouth advertising, it's not the kind you want.
When the people have just an average or even "good" experience they might return sometime but there's no big incentive to do so because in most markets there are lots other "good" and "average" dining choices available. And when it comes to word of mouth, what are the chances that many people bother to spread the word about a good or average restaurant? Slim to none.
It's only when you show someone an extraordinary or substantially better than "good" experience that you move the odds in your favour of creating a loyal guest and positive Word-of-Mouth (WOM). Give your guests something to talk about! Don't ignore or leave this critical aspect of restaurant marketing to chance. Our consultations include ways independent operators can encourage their guests to spread the word about their restaurant in ways that generate sincere and enthusiastic testimonials and more customers. How much loyalty and positive WOM are you creating? If you want more, improve your guest experience. It's that easy (and that hard).
