Are you accounting for the difference between satisfied and very satisfied customers in your restaurant?

If you’re like me, you will dine out in a variety of different establishments.  I’ve been fortunate enough to be in some very prestigious restaurants and also some very ‘greasy spoons’ (a few of which were brilliant).  When we go out to eat, it is the food that is uppermost in our minds, which is entirely right and proper, but there is so much more to the experience than just taste and texture. 

Ambience, atmosphere, call it what you will, but the feeling you get in any particular restaurant is very important.  For example, walk into the Blythswood Square Hotel in Glasgow and the effect is striking, combining elegance with modernity and just enough touches of its past as the former Royal Scottish Automobile Club building (dating from 1823) to provide additional background interest. Contrast that with Rules in London, one of that city’s oldest establishments, relatively formal and serving very traditional food (a lot of game) in very traditional surroundings. Then think of your favourite Indian, Chinese or Thai restaurant.  The chances are they will reflect their heritage, albeit an anglified one, and there may well be some stereotypical pictures on the walls.

However, no matter what the place looks and feels like, there is one other vital ingredient (no, not summer pudding) that is essential if you are to enjoy your dinner. It is, of course, the service that accompanies the food. In some instances it’s the other way round, and good service actually makes up for poor food, but in general it is both sides of the coin - a great chef and first-class service - that make for a superb restaurant.

I’ve been looking into what the industry thinks makes for great customer service.  Of course, in our day job, we speak to hoteliers and restaurateurs and are constantly made aware of their desire to provide superb service, at every point on the customer’s journey through their premises, but there is much more to this than perception and feeling. 

Researching the subject, many of the articles were from the USA (the home of great customer service?), and I was particularly interested in some work done at Harvard Business School no less, on Starbucks.  While acknowledging that Starbucks isn’t silver service, the principles and the figures, do, I think, hold up in general for many other establishments.  The research specifically addressed ‘customer satisfaction’, which one can reasonably infer is related to both quality of food and drink and service.

The findings showed that the ‘satisfied customer’ visits Starbucks 4.3 times per month, spends $4.06 and is a customer for 4.4 years. That’s pretty good, but more importantly, a ‘highly satisfied customer’ visits 7.2 times per month, spends $4.42 and is a customer for 8.3 years.  Extrapolating these figures over a year, it’s clear the ‘highly satisfied customer’ spends 82 percent more each year—and is worth $3,169.67 over the span of their ‘customer life’.

Now if the majority of your customers fall into the ‘very satisfied’ bracket, then well done, but you have not much scope to increase your income.  If, as I suspect is the case for many, your customers are largely in the ‘satisfied’ group, then how do we move them on and up?  The benefits are obvious, so in the next few weeks I’ll consider some of the things that we all need to do, and how we, as recruiters, might help you do them.

Paul Wilson, Director, Xpress Recruitment