Lets first go over all of the elements that factor into an experience as it is related to your restaurant. A restaurant is such an easy stage to to build experience on because it automatically involves all of the key human senses, sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. Now this can work very much for you or very much against you with the consideration that, all 5 of these senses are effected within a persons experience in a restaurant, so violate or offend any one of these senses and you have flubbed the whole experience. For instance a bad odor from the kitchen would offend a person via the smelling sense, a dirty dining room with messy tables would offend the sight sense, bad food – taste, music too loud – hearing, uncomfortable chairs – touch. So you can see how important it is to please all of the senses when attempting to create a wonderful experience for your guests.

Take a moment below and list out first all of the bad things that could happen in your restaurant that would have a negative impact on your guests experiences via their senses.

(*Go ahead and print this post as a guide for you to use in your restaurant)

Taste

Sight

Sound

Smell

Touch

Now take another moment and list out all of the things you could do in your restaurant that would enhance and improve your guests experience via their senses.

Taste

Sight

Sound

Smell

Touch

Great! Now you have an understanding of how these senses effect your guest and how important it is for you and your staff to be consciously aware of these factors and begin to implement them into your daily actions aimed at improving your guests experience. It is very important for you to maintain and integrate the practice of applying this principle into your daily operation.

Making this a daily practice and habit will automatically put your restaurant into the “guest experience” mindset! Remember before you can create the experience you must first understand and relate to the experience.

This will create a great amount of repeat orders, the winners will definetely call you for their next take out and the losers will remember the chance they have at receiving free food. You can also just decrease the reward for winning the flip as the night goes on – so you may even give a 15% discount to them if they win and 5% if they lose – so they are always getting something.

I did this in one of my pizza shops once and I had the same house full of college kids call 4 times that night and order from us – they didn’t win the first 3 so I just gave them the 4th pizza. Try this out, it creates a lot of fun, uniqueness and repeat business!

Chef Mickey

Find a local group or organization, lets say your local high school football team. These days most high school athletes parents are stuck with the bill for uniforms, equipment, etc.. when their kids participate in sports. So arm the kids and parents with a generous supply of cards that lets the recipient of the card know that for every $10 spent at your restaurant, your restaurant will be donating $2 to the high school football team for uniforms and equipment.  At the end of the month or specific time period, count up the cards, figure out the amount of contribution and present the check to the team. You may even want to make a good PR event out of it like a lunch or at halftime of the first home game.

3 wonderful things happen here:

1) The kids are going to get money for their needs and people will be more likely to give it because they are giving without spending, all they are doing is paying the same price for food at your restaurant they normally would – but $2 is going to charity in their name.

2) You are positioning yourself and your customers as contributors to your community – great PR and just a great thing to do regardless.

3) Your increasing your business with traffic flow you would not normally get, which offsets the cost of donations discounted. Plus your restaurant gets the tax write off. I like tax write offs, do you?

So there’s a simple yet powerful promotion that results in everyone involved winning! What are you waiting for – go do it!

Chef Mickey

If I asked 10 restaurant owners if they knew the true value of a customer, I would probably get yes 10 times, then I would probably get 10 different answers defining what that value is. There is a simple mathematical formula for figuring this out. You just take your average check and multiply it by the amount of visits your average customer makes to your restaurant in a year and that is the annual value of a customer. One very important factor most restaurant owners leave out is how much did it cost you to get that customer in the door in the first place – and this of course would be subtracted from the value of that customer since it is money spent.

More importantly than this equation though is not only how many more times the guest comes back is, what are you and your staff doing to make sure he/she is coming in more often? Because each time you get a repeat guest, you automatically begin to diminish the expense of capturing them in the first place. Speaking as a restaurant guest myself and not a consultant, I can tell you that 99% of the restaurants out there are doing NOTHING to bring me back. These 99% are the same restaurant owners I here complaining about business being slow. So lets look at this as a boy meets girl scenario, as I do in my soon to be released book – “Turning Your Restaurant Into A Goldmine In The 21^st Century”.

Simplified it goes something like this: Boy meets girl, feels an attraction and spends the next month trying to get that first date. She finally gives him that “Yes” he was hoping for, he’s very excited and the first date is going great, she laughs at his stupid jokes, doesn’t notice his socks don’t match and they both have a great evening. He even gets a kiss goodnight! Then he drops the ball, no follow- up call or even more important, he failed to even mention the possibility of getting together again soon. Guess he was too excited about the kiss. So a week goes buy, he finally calls – problem – she’s back with her ex boyfriend or is leaving for a safari in Africa for the next 6 months. Game over. All of Romeo’s hard work is for nill. Where could he have gone wrong?

Well in the relationship world it is referred to as failing to “Build Future” and most restaurants are just as guilty as Romeo in this category. As successful owners and marketing planners we must recognize that once we get a hold of Juliet (aka the guest) we need to begin building a future from interaction number one if we want to hold on to this valuable catch. So shift your mindset from “I need to get more customers” to “I need to get more customers AND always be creating a reason for them to come back”

Don’t let all of your hard work and money spent obtaining new guests be in vian by #1) – Not giving them a great first experience and #2) Not making sure that before they leave, you’ve given them a reason to come back!

So here are a few ideas you can look at that you may find yourself wanting to use in your restaurant.

Or you may have some of your own ideas that would relate much better to your specific conditions.

Start a customer loyalty rewards program

Implement a customer referral program with rewards for referrals

Always have a table tent or flier announcing a special event coming up soon.

Or simply give them a complimentary drink or dessert on their next visit – with a very limited time expiration date. i.e…14 days or less

You can come up with 100′s of great ideas for this, the important part is that you stay aware of the need for this and consistently apply these actions with all of your guests. You will love the results and it’s about a thousand times cheaper than the cost of a new ad!

So what is this term flying around the business and marketing world called a USP. Well USP is an acronym I’ve heard used to abbreviate a few different definitions. The two most common are Ultimate Selling Proposition or Unique Sales Position. These two really both translate to the same meaning – What makes your business different and unique? What is it you offer that separates you from the competition?

When you think about it, this should be the platform that you build your restaurant or catering business on. It should and can only be determined by you, the owner. It is your definition to yourself, your staff and both existing and prospective customers. What do you different? Are you open 24 hours when everyone else in your specific niche closes at midnight? Do you specialize in service to small children like Chuckie Cheese, is your Chef an award winning Fine Dining expert? Maybe your the only restaurant in the area with outdoor dining? “Come on down to Johnny’s Place and enjoy the only outdoor patio and bar in town!”

A couple of great examples of developing and applying a USP would be Dominoes Pizza and Lenscrafters. The first example, Dominoes Pizza is not in the pizza business, they are in the “Getting you a pizza in 30 minutes or less” business. That is what they became known for and how they positioned their company for success of a multi-billion dollar company that sells sub par pizza – they even admitted that covertly recently by introducing a “New recipe” pizza. Now after cornering the market for their 30 minutes or less promise they’ve decided to actually produce a quality product after over 40 years of business.

The second example of applying a USP is Lenscrafters, similar to Dominoes, they are not in the optical business or eye glass prescription business, they are in the business of making new eye glasses in “One hour or less”

What developing this USP early on (all though it is never too late!) does for you is create a message for you to continuously communicate to your prospects what makes you different, it helps them separate and identify you from the rest of the crowd, build a marketing plan with a theme and platform and open up doors to create merchandising opportunities for more profits – ever seen anybody wearing a Hooters T-shirt or a Harley Davidson Jacket? Your USP will be the seed you plant that from which your Brand will blossom. Branding is a vital part of how effective your marketing efforts are. Answer these questions in your mind really quick:

Name a Soft Drink —- I know your answer

Name a hamburger franchise —–I know your answer

Name a TV all sports channel — I know your answer

Name a magazine with pictures of beautiful nude women—- I know your answer

That is what effective branding does for you – it becomes apart of your subconscious memory that is recalled instantly – even like the above example with a very broad description – I didn’t even use those famous symbols – but I’ll bet as you were thinking about them you visualized each of those businesses symbols in your head didn’t you? Now here’s the significance and importance of Symbolism and Branding.

We’re all familiar with established and powerful name brands, Nike, Coke, Apple, AT&T, etc…but what is it that makes them so powerful – well there is actually a psychological combination that takes place resulting in our ability to identify with and be moved by symbols.

Human beings have four different realities. What we see, what we think, what we feel and what we can identify aka, symbolism.

Now the first three realities work as separate entities within us, in other words we do not need either of the other two in order for the one to occur. We can think without feeling, we can see without thinking, we can feel without seeing and so on. But the fourth reality – Symbolism is actually both a trigger and result of the combination of the other three realities, thinking, seeing and feeling. Let me explain and simplify.

When we SEE a SYMBOL, it automatically makes us THINK of what it represents, which in turn causes us to FEEL whatever emotion our brain has attached to it. For example, when your at a ball game and you stand up for the national anthem and look at the flag – do you get an emotion inside you that represents your love for your country and patriotism? When you see a police officer in uniform, do you get a feeling of relief if your car is broken down or you fear your in danger/ or do you get a feeling of fear if you know your speeding and you see a police car pop up on you? These are examples of how our realities tie together and symbolism is the glue that brings them all together which makes for a very powerful effect. Think about it, symbolism is the one reality that has the ability to bring all of our realities together at once. Is there anything more convincing than to have all of your realities brought together as a reassurance?

So with this in mind you can now see how powerful symbolism is and why it is so important for you to utilize this in your business. Human beings do not spend money based on decisions that derive from the logical part of our minds. We spend money and make buying decisions from the emotional part of our minds. And a Brand, with a specific USP attached to it, represented by a Symbol, triggers the proper emotional state we need to be in for our desire to kick in, to buy your product or decide to eat at your restaurant.

So how can you begin to develop your own USP and build a Brand around it that is identified with the Symbol (or Logo) you’ve designed? This can be a very creative and fun project, as well as prove to really help you boost your restaurant numbers and profits. As you are thinking about this, remember to keep merchandising in mind and how you could connect that into your branding to find yet another source of revenue for restaurant. Not to mention turn your consumers into walking billboards for your business the way Nike so ingeniously has!

Do you remember the old 1 and 10 rule? You know every time 1 person has a bad customer experience they will tell 10 people about it, so technically 10 people might as well have had the bad experience. Well let me tell you a quick story about an experience I had in a restaurant recently.

I was sitting in a local campus hangout having lunch and in the booth behind me were two female college students. As soon as I sat down, it became obvious that they were not having a very good experience. One of the girls was complaining to her friend about the service and the food. Then in the middle of her venting she noticed her friend was typing on her iPhone and said to her “Who are you texting?” Her friend replied – “I’m not texting, I’m reading Brittany’s post on FaceBook, she’s having a party tonight.” So the girl upset with the food and service said back to her “Tell her we’re at xxxxx and the food and service sucks here!” the girl with the iPhone replied “I already did – haha!”

Well the restaurant consultant in me couldn’t hold back, my mind immediately began to speed up its gears and do some calculations. I couldn’t help myself, so I stood up and turned to the two girls in the booth behind me and ask:

Me: “Sounds like you ladies are having a bad experience here today?”

Girl on the right: “ Oh totally! The waitress forgot her drink, she brought me a diet coke when I ask for a regular coke and my chicken sandwich was raw!! – this place sucks if I were you I wouldn’t eat here!”

Me: “Yeah I just got here and I’m sitting right behind you and couldn’t help but over hear your complaints. Let me ask you a question did I just here that you posted something about it to a friend on FaceBook?”

Girl on the left: “Ya I did – I don’t want any of my friends to come here and get sick!”

Me: “Can I ask you another question if you don’t mind, how many friends do you have on your FaceBook page?” (Now I said this with a half sarcastic smile on my face because I was looking at this young lady and she was quite attractive – I already knew in my mind it was going to be a big number!)

Girl on left: “Uh I don’t know let me check” – she scanned over her FaceBook page on her iPhone and answered “three thousand six hundred and thirty eight”

Me: “hahahaha!” laughing maliciously

Now lets do some quick math. For those of you who have never been on FaceBook – in a quick frame here’s how it works – you have friends that follow you, when you make a post they all see it, and when one of your friends writes a post all of there friends see it. Now when you make a post responding to another friends initial posts all of your friends see it, all of their friends see it and all of the friends of anybody else who comments on that particular posts sees it.

So let me show you how that works out mathematically –and in less than 1 second this is how many people were notified of these two girls terrible experience:

Her friends: 3,638

Amount of friends the friend she responded to had – lets be conservative 1,000

Lets assume her friends post had 10 replies – after all it was about a party

So 10 replies from people with 1000 friends each = 10,000

Total people notified of the bad experience in 1 second = 14,638!!!

Wow – can you see now how powerful social media can be and do you realize how it can harm you as much as it can help you?

So lets turn this scenario around and see how quickly this could be a business boomer instead of a viral infection spreading around town about your restaurant.

Lets say you managed this bar and restaurant. Now since you are such a great manager the whole wrong drinks and raw chicken thing never happened. Instead, as you are walking through the dining room, you notice these two ladies sitting in a booth and you also notice that one of them is texting or posting to a social media site. You approach them and ask how everything is. They’re happy, smile and say “great” You reply to them, “How would you ladies like a free dessert on me, we have the most delicious frozen chocolate mousse pie in town?”

They smile big and say “Sure”. You say back to them, “OK but under one condition. Tonight we have an awesome live band coming in and we really want to get the word out because it’s going to be a great party! I will buy you both dessert if you would just simply use your iPhone to post onto Facebook that this great band is playing here tonight and if any of your friends mention either of your names and that they saw this on Facebook they can get in for free without paying the $5 cover charge – deal?”

Two girls: “No problem we can do that!” Hey Brittany’s having a party tonight, maybe we’ll all come here after!”

Now that is a turn around and that is an example of how two experiences can be blasted out into the world in one second flat. As a restaurant owner the idea of the first bad experience scenario has to scare the hell out of you – but as a restaurant owner the idea of the second experience of promoting to thousands for the cost of a piece of pie has to excite the hell out of you.

This is why, like never before, the service part of the service business is so very, very important. Because for every customer sitting in your restaurant is literally representing thousands of eyes, ears and noses at once. Every single customer experience that takes place in your business must be treated as if thousands of others are having it. Because with social media in the world – they are. And as you just learned from the above random experience I had, it can be lethal or fruitful for you. The very first thing you must do in the 21^st century is be aware and conscious of that at all times and train your team to do the same.

1. (If you missed part 1 read post below first.)
3. 3)  If you have a host/hostess they should be waiting at the door to open it for the guest, give them a big smile and welcome them to your Restaurant.  This person should be very well groomed, well dressed and neat and have a great natural smile. This is the first person the guest is going to associate to your Restaurant. Don’t blow it here.

1. 4) The temperature of the room a guest first enters must be comfortable. If it’s cold outside, make sure it’s very warm at the entrance, if it’s hot outside, make sure it’s very cool at the entrance. Don’t be cheap here.

5)  Restaurants by nature have a broad range of odors – the kitchen has multiple things cooking at one time, we use different chemicals with different odors for different cleaning tasks, some Restaurants still have smoking sections, different staff members may have different colognes and perfumes on, etc, etc.. when working in this environment all day our sense of smell becomes desensitized. So it’s a good idea to walk out of the Restaurant for a few minutes, get some fresh air and then walk back inside to see what your nose is telling you.

6) The dining room needs to be kept clean and neat at all times – be sure nothing is on the floor and that the table your hostess seats your guest at looks like it is set for a VIP.

Your guests server must make a same great first impression, arriving promptly, looking great and smiling.

Most people in our industry do not pay enough attention to the psychology of humans – and you will find yourself wanting to learn more on this subject, as you discover how powerful this can be when applied to servicing your customers. After all it is the “Service” business, that as a Restaurant owner, you and your employees are in.

Psychological studies and tests have discovered that Human Beings pass judgment subconsciously on new environments and people within 4 seconds. What are they looking for – well it’s more like, what are they seeing, hearing, smelling and even internally feeling. Long before a new customer has even taken a taste of your best dish they’ve already made up there mind on how they feel about your Restaurant and Service.

The human brain loves speed – and without even having to be consciously aware that it’s doing it – the human mind processes being introduced to new environments and new people rapidly! So as you strive to be a great Restrautuer you need to keep this in mind when tending to your Restaurants appearance and the appearance of your Service staff.

What occurs in the human mind is it will absorb negative and positive information through all the human senses: Touch, smell, site, sound, taste and instinct. When it takes this information in, the subconscious mind processes it and makes a determination – positive or negative, and that determination is now hard wired in and very difficult to change. Here are 7 steps that you can take to make sure your guests first impression is a positive one.

When going through these preparations be sure to put yourself into your customers shoes – think like them, see what they would see, smell what they would smell, hear what they would hear etc…

1)  Start where they start – your parking lot. 30 minutes prior to opening each day assign an employee to walk through the lot and clear all garbage any possible hazards that could cause a guest to slip or step in.

2)  Approach your entrance – does it look inviting? If you have grass, plants or flowers are they well groomed and looking nice? If you have front windows or a window on your entrance door is it shiny and clean? Make this a part of your pre-opening routine and check it through out the day.

…..Continued in Part 2

If you missed Restaurant Business  part one click here

2)  Implement a continuous and ritualistic training system for your service staff that relentlessly reminds them of the above. Remember it begins with you. Make this as much of a daily routine as turning on the coffee pot every morning. Train, train and train. It will show positive results in your cash register. I cannot emphasise this enough.

3) Make sure your guest is given a great experience when walking in the door. Make them feel welcome when they come in, we all know the old saying about first impressions. Treat every customer that comes in like an old friend you haven’t seen forever. Comfortable people spend more.

4)  Make them feel important throughout their entire meal – have your servers introduce themselves by name and then try to get your guests name and use it throughout the meal. Study after study has shown nothing sounds sweeter to a person than their own name. Have your server get in the mindset that they are making a new friend, starting a new relationship – and remind them that friends tip friends better!

5) Finally make them feel like you can’t wait to see them again when they leave – because you can’t! Ask every guest before they leave how everything was today. Even before plopping the check down in front of them. Let them know that you care about more than collecting the money. Then as they are leaving – ask for a future customer – simply have a manager, server or hostess say to the guest on the way out – “Thank you so much for coming in, we hope you come back and see us again” those few words are very inviting and very powerful.There is nothing more valuable to your bank account than a repeat customer.

Follow these five steps and you will be on your way to more business and a fine tuned service staff!!

Chef Mickey

Many Restaurant owners like yourself have all the tools in place – great location, good menu, an awesome Chef serving up delicious food, but the one thing that is slipping under your nose is Service. This is the single most important aspect of our industry and also the easiest to lose control of. Why? Because you can’t be every where all the time and most customers will not let you know when they’ve had a bad experience , unfortunately they will let an average of about ten other people know.

So what can you do to refine your service to the point that customers are out in the world acting like a paid personal spokesman for your Restaurant? Well again, it all comes down to Service and below I have listed for you 5 ways you can turn your Restaurant into a 5 star service machine whether you are serving coney dogs or caviar.

1. First and foremost, you must begin with your own mindset as an owner that you are in the SERVICE business! Remember this one thing – as an owner, you are NOT in the Restaurant business, you are in the Service business that uses food and beverages as a vehicle to provide people with what they are truly seeking when they walk into your establishment – an experience, and the determining factor in whether or not they get a great experience or a bad experience is great Service or bad Service.

Remember this – we replace the last thing we ate or drank with the next thing we eat or drink. However our memory is everlasting – and even without knowing it we subconsciously store all experiences and recall them when given a trigger to remember them, like the name of your Restaurant. The best “experience” will be recalled and their brains will lead them there. The bad experiences are filtered out and will be intentionally forgotten. This is how our minds work. This is how the big franchises win.

We’ll go over the other actions you can take to increase your restaurants profits with service in part 2.