Drive Repeat Business and Improve Reputation by Leveraging Restaurant Guest Feedback

Valuable insights are walking out your door. Every day, your restaurant guests leave without telling you anything about their visit. Unless they go the extra mile and leave a review on Yelp or Google, once they leave, the moment’s gone, and they’re back into the flow of their lives.

Online reviews can’t be relied on alone as a gauge for your guests’ experience. But you can get more positive ones by capturing customer feedback before they leave your restaurant when their experience is fresh on their minds.

In an industry where every restaurant is competing for frequency, it's crucial to tap into your guests’ evolving needs and preferences. Going the extra mile to collect and respond to this in-the-moment feedback can give your restaurant a competitive advantage – leading to repeat business, more profits and a glowing online reputation. 

Why Collect Feedback?

Happy customers are your best advocates. Addressing feedback promptly demonstrates that you value their experience, which fosters loyalty and encourages positive word-of-mouth. Satisfied customers are more likely to return and recommend your restaurant to others, driving long-term success.

A study by the Harvard Business School found that even a one-star increase in a Yelp rating can result in a substantial revenue boost of 5-9%. So gathering and responding to customer feedback gives you a better shot at bumping up your rating and your profits. 

Successful Brands That Are Getting It Right

According to a report from Mastercard SpendingPulse™:

• Chili’s experienced success with its "3 for Me" meal, offering an appetizer, entrée, and dessert for $10, based on customer input about affordable dining options.
• PF Chang’s increased traffic by introducing a “happy hour” with food and drink options priced at $6 or less, responding to feedback about value during weekdays.

And an American Customer Satisfaction Index study on the restaurant industry saw Texas Roadhouse claim the #1 spot, crediting their heavy investment in their teams for their high customer satisfaction rating.  

Capture, Then Adjust

It’s one thing to capture guest feedback – it’s another to take the extra step and respond accordingly. 

If there are complaints about drink wait times, change your operation to deliver drinks within a set amount of time, or offer water upon seating. If customers are missing a recently removed dish, bring it back, even for a limited time. 

Customers will feel heard by these adjustments – making them more likely to come back again. This is the type of feedback that might be forgotten if it’s not captured immediately after a visit. 

Overcoming Feedback Barriers 

Most restaurants already have some sort of feedback collection in place. But pen-and-paper comment cards or using QR codes to access customer surveys present a huge barrier to collecting feedback, even if incentivized. People just don’t go through the hassle – they want to pay and move on, not use their phone to scan and fill something out. 

Implement Better Feedback Management

With Ziosk’s customer experience technology, it’s pay, tap and done – seamlessly integrating custom feedback collection into the table tablet payment process. Making it this simple leads to a higher response rate: one in three guests respond, resulting in 3.5 million daily responses across all Ziosk brands when guests’ experience is fresh on their minds. 

Actionable insights are gleamed from the data thanks to advanced analytics with AI technology, which organizes the feedback at scale to make the learnings easy to see and implement. This ensures the valuable information that’s collected is used effectively, allowing restaurants to implement changes quickly and see results faster.

Stop letting business-changing feedback walk out your door. Proactively capture what your guests are thinking in-the-moment with Ziosk. The insights you gain can drive better experiences, increased profits and a better online reputation.