How To Improve Your Customer Experience and Make It More Memorable

In the hospitality industry more than any other, providing customers with unforgettable memories that bring them back time and again is a clear and ever-present dream. This dream is elusive and reaching it requires dedication and a team of skilled and friendly staff.

There are many parts of a business that need fine-tuning to improve customer experience, from a booking and welcoming protocol to investments in staff training, technological tools and decorations. 

A memorable face to the business

People are sociable by nature, and your customers are no different. For this reason, a big influence over customer experience is the performance of your staff. Customers that feel a bond with staff are likely to remember the business and become repeat visitors.

This is true for both restaurants and hotels. So one of the best first steps any business can take to increase customer satisfaction is to assign staff members personal care of customers. In restaurants, the common way to do this is to assign waiting staff sections of the floor. Diners will then have one name to remember, and staff taking total care of a few tables can more easily remember the names of guests and create a friendly, customer-centric environment.

Hotels have many points of contact as visitors flit in and out of their rooms and the building. Ensuring visitors know the name of a staff member that will be available (one for the day, one for the night) is a valuable habit. Long staying guests should be informed of who will be taking care of them and should be notified if tomorrow’s staff member will be someone else. This creates a friendly but attentive atmosphere and makes visitors feel able to ask questions with greater ease.

In both hotels and restaurants, taking the time to make conversation with guests is crucial. Customer service expectations vary from business to business, and when staff ask further, light questions of visitors, about their food preferences, the local area or family wellbeing, it sets a tone and demonstrates to guests that they are not being rushed.

Showing that staff have time to spend with them, and can answer even smaller queries, provides guests with the sense that they are cared for. A word from the hotel or restaurant manager can also achieve this goal.

Naturally, tired, unmotivated staff struggle to engage customers with the same effect, so taking care of your team’s morale and motivation is key. Providing more support with greater staff numbers can help this. Businesses looking to improve profitability may look to cut back on staff and trade with greater efficiency, making life more difficult for staff while not necessarily increasing productivity.

Often, the difference between premium and economy class hospitality is human contact provided by the hotel or restaurant. Therefore, to improve customer experience and change the tone of your business, investing a little more in the number of staff available and training them in CRM (customer relations management) can lead to a great customer experience and can make life easier for the team all in one move.

How technology can improve customer experience

Using technology to improve a product or service is now one of the most common ways to improve a business. Customers expect certain technologies because of how common they have become, whether these are top-quality EPOS or MPOS systems (electronic/mobile point of sale) or electronic keycards instead of door keys at hotels.

Creating greater dialogue between your business and customers through Google Business is an excellent start. Google Business provides access to Google Reviews allowing customer feedback to take place, which can be the easiest way of finding out pain points in the dining experience.

No matter which area of trade you’re looking to improve, your EPOS system will be instrumental in implementing any changes. If you’re thinking about how to improve customer experience in hotels, considering how you use your EPOS customer management system could be beneficial. Epos Now’s customer's section allows you to document repeat guests' feedback, so that any issues can be addressed on the next stay.

Checking customer notes before arrival can be a strong protocol, allowing preventative measures to be taken to improve the hotel guest experience upon each visit. Meanwhile, loyalty programs can integrate with your EPOS so that guests automatically receive points when spending with the business. LoyaltyDog and Loyalzoo have customer apps making the scheme personal to the customer.

When considering how to improve customer experience in a restaurant, online ordering options can be great for in-house as well as takeaway customers. Online ordering allows customers to make dining choices at their convenience without the pressure some feel from taking time from staff. Companies like me&u provide great options for companies looking to implement at table/online ordering.

While customer contact is crucial, technology can provide customers with greater choice and the option to have a less personal experience if that is their preference.

Online ordering isn’t the only option available though. There is app-based reservation, website integrations for restaurants, and MPOS devices like Epos Now’s Pro+ which provide all the functionality of bar-based EPOS terminals at the table.

Complimentary services

Great customer support and a modern system isn’t the only way to improve restaurant customer experience. Both hotels and restaurants that go the extra mile for customers even as part of a basic package can really build a memorable experience for their guests.

Welcome packages in hotels and personalised name cards on the table in restaurants reservations, gift bags on departure, small appetisers on the house and post-meal lemon cloths can all provide the sense of style that customers love from businesses.

Providing as many of these services as possible shows an attention to detail and care that few hospitality experiences don’t benefit from. These extras are the things that the best hotels and restaurants attend to as carefully as their main services.

Extra touches like these can be mimicked in the care given to decoration. Having a “just right” every time mentality and a consistent need to provide your customers these kinds of experiences is a key part of making your business memorable.

This same level of care for business, when applied to the environment is equally valuable and something many customers look for when choosing who to bring trade to. Sustainably Run is a corporate social responsibility initiative helping businesses trade responsibly and can help ensure businesses do not lose trade because of ethical concerns.

An EPOS to remember

Nothing impresses customers more than lightning-quick transactions and easy efficiency. Epos Now’s hospitality solutions provide streamlined service like clockwork and give your business options for expanding and automating your service:

• Provide a friendly welcome to customers with an in-built CRM system
• Create a system that suits your business with flexible software and hardware options
• Expand and improve with the latest hospitality apps and integrations covering everything from accounting, booking, marketing and online ordering
• Know more about what your customers like with hundreds of detailed, downloadable reports on product and employee sales and much, much more

To find out more about Epos Now solutions, submit your details below or get in touch with our expert team and ask about an EPOS system trusted by over 40,000 businesses