Article

How Operators Exceed Guest Expectations

Shawn Walchef, owner of Calif Comfort BBQ and host of the Digital Hospitality and Restaurant Influencers podcast, spends a lot of time thinking about "digital hospitality", or how to deliver hospitality in an online experience. Walchef believes that independent operators have many opportunities to translate "the amazing things we do in real life" online once they begin to explore the idea.

When it comes to guest expectations, operators tend to focus on what happens within the four walls. These days, guest expectations often begin well before diners set foot in a restaurant. By ignoring guests pre-dine-in experiences with their concepts, independent restaurant operators miss out on valuable chances to create positive associations with their brand.

"A vast majority of operators don't understand that who they are in real life translates to who they are online," Walchef says. They overlook digital hospitality because they just do not think about it. There is an advantage to taking digital hospitality seriously: the concept is relatively new and few independent operators have embraced it. Operators who embrace digital hospitality will have an early mover advantage to delight guests and create regulars.

Look at a common example from the customer perspective. A customer visits the restaurant's website. They cannot find the information they need, so they send an email or fill out a contact form online. No one from the restaurant ever responds. If a customer walked into the restaurant and asked the host a question, they would get an answer promptly. Why isn't the same courtesy extended when they reach out online?

"One would think living through the pandemic, restaurants would understand how important it is to have a strong presence online and talk to their customers and update their website and have online ordering," Walchef says. "The amount of restaurants on Toast that don't have online ordering and just use Toast as a POS system is crazy to me," he adds.

Of course, restaurant operators are not alone in not taking full advantage of technology. Walchef mentions the experience of signing up his son for Little League baseball. Where he lives, there is a waiting list of kids – more customers than a concept could serve, in this analogy. The local Little League has an old, outdated website that does not list need-to-know information like signups, schedules or an equipment list for new players.

Walchef emailed the league to ask, and a week later they replied and asked him to email the coach. He emailed the coach, and no one ever replied. He tells this story to illustrate how common it is for organizations not to provide their customers with basic information, particularly when demand exceeds supply.

When this happens, whether it is with Little League or a local restaurant, users are frustrated before the first face-to-face interaction with a brand. Operators who pride themselves on a sense of hospitality need to start thinking outside the four walls or risk being left behind. "People that are making money and have been doing it a certain way for however long don't realize how fast the internet has changed how we consume," Walchef says. "When you are making money, you do not realize your website sucks or your loyalty program sucks. You do not care about your digital footprint, the way a startup looks differently at it."

In this case, novice concepts may have an edge over established concepts. In the restaurant startup phase, operators are spending a lot of time and energy to develop a brand identity, brand values, service style, culture and online presence. They are developing procedures for how their restaurant will run. They are training their first hires on how to do it "their way." Digital hospitality best practices can be incorporated into the service model from the outset.

Providing them with a hospitable welcome when they pick up the food creates a type of reciprocity so the driver is more likely to handle your food with care on route to your guest, Orsbourn explains. Make the drivers feel part of your team and you'll reap the rewards. For example, he suggests offering free coffee to drivers and letting them use the restroom.

Established operators have one good reason to consider investing in digital hospitality: the economy. If the U.S. economy dives into a recession this year, operators will have to think very practically about how to recession-proof their concept.

Digital hospitality can be that edge that dazzles and retains customers. It does not have to be difficult. Walchef mentions little things that operators can do to impress customers: texting a customer to let them know their order was received, personalizing the package, smiling when handing a to-go order to a customer.

He compares it to the difference between customer service and hospitality. "Hospitality is having empathy, listening, observing, asking the right questions so somebody feels seen, heard and loved, and they have to go tell somebody else," Walchef. "To someone that lives and breathes hospitality, customer service is the bare minimum."

Walchef emphasizes it is not enough to read an article, operators must go and do something afterwards. As a first step toward embracing digital hospitality, Walchef encourages operators to honestly assess their hospitality outside the four walls. Where are they providing an equivalent experience to what guests would experience in-house? Where are they falling short?

Once weaknesses are identified, it is time to focus on making improvements. Rather than rush to adopt new technologies, focus first on improving the digital assets already in use, such as a website that may be out of date. Free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide valuable information about how customers interact with a website. After reviewing their data for a month, operators will understand who finds their website, how customers use the website, and what search terms are used.

This information can be used to market to customers and improve on the guest experience. When you know what people are looking for, you can give it to them. When existing digital tools are optimized for a better guest experience, operators can think about taking full advantage of technologies they already pay for, such as using Toast for online ordering. "Every single guest that walks into the restaurant has the internet in their hands. The chances they interacted with that brand before they walked into the restaurant are very high. The chances you want them to continue to interact are even higher. That's why social media, email marketing and website matter," Walchef says.

Building Better Delivery Experiences

Restaurants have limited control over the guest experience with third-party marketplaces and delivery drivers. Author of "Delivering the Digital Restaurant" Carl Orsbourn offers two suggestions for exceeding guest expectations in a third-party delivery scenario.

First, operators should anticipate things going wrong and provide a direct way for guests to offer feedback. Orsbourn suggests putting a QR code on the receipt or the delivery bag that links to a way for guests to give direct feedback. This could be via webform or an app like Ovation. This discreet gesture instantly lets guests know how to share feedback and provides operators with valuable information about the problem. "If you know you're running late for dispatching an order, think about how you can make up for it before you dispatch the food package," Orsbourn says. "Fixing an off-premise transaction is expensive and lengthy, but it's better to try and fix it versus have the customer leave a negative review on Google, tell their friends and the world about it, and never visit you again."

Second, operators must work to get delivery drivers on their side. Orsbourn makes a case that "drivers are the new servers." For guests who order delivery, drivers are the only people they may interact with. The driver's care or lack thereof immediately impacts the guest experience, for good or bad.

"Make the drivers feel part of your team and you'll reap the rewards. Providing them with a hospitable welcome when they pick up the food creates a type of reciprocity, so the driver is more likely to handle your food with care on route to your guest," Orsbourn explains. For example, he suggests offering free coffee to drivers and letting them use the restroom.

Turning drivers into allies can help improve the delivery experience for guests. Orsbourn also encourages operators to consider little ways to improve the delivery experience. Common examples include thank you notes from employees who packed orders and special offers for ordering directly from the restaurant.

Converting third-party orders to direct orders increases revenue. It comes with the bonus of customer information which can be incorporated into existing email marketing campaigns. "Once you have customer identifier information, you can add them to your e-commerce funnel and encourage them to frequent you more often, try new items, or receive value-oriented offers," says Orsbourn.

Today's Guest Experience is Omni-Channel

Guests are increasingly omnichannel. "They may come in for date night on Saturday, but may order delivery on Tuesdays because they're late home from work and can't be bothered to cook," Orsbourn says. These are different channels with multiple fulfillment methods: dine-in, takeout, direct or third-party delivery The guest remains the same.

Here, restaurants have an opportunity to learn from retail. E-commerce sites track customer buying habits and leverage data to influence customer behavior. For example, they use retargeting ads to attempt to woo a customer to order an item they looked at but did not purchase. With services like online ordering and third-party delivery, restaurants have become e-commerce companies, in a way. So why aren't operators tracking online behavior, mining customer data for insights about the guest experience, and using technology to woo customers back to their brand?

Independent operators may think such practices are best left to the chains which have more staff power to devote to digital marketing. However, there are ways to make these practices work in small concepts. As with digital hospitality, the brands that incorporate these practices now may be in a better position to retain core customers in an economic slump.

Orsbourn recommends operators break their customers into audience segments or groups. Then, they can send targeted emails to each group. For example, one group is customers who place delivery orders during lunch. These customers rarely if ever dine in. A coupon that is limited to delivery or lunch service will appeal to this audience, whereas an email about a nighttime event on-premises is likely to miss the mark. Over time, the combination of right message-right time-right way fosters a sense of being heard and seen, which plays into a positive guest experience.

Advanced email marketing techniques like this may seem like too much work for an independent operator who is short on time. Orsbourn suggests a simplified approach. An operator can divide the customer email list in two, a list of customers who visit regularly and customers who have visited once in the last 12 months. "How would you write an email or propose a marketing message to those two groups?" he asks. "It certainly would be different and the value you offer may be different. Similarly, what and how would you communicate if you knew a guest was visiting you once a month but hasn't been back for the last six months?"

These so-called lapsed customer segments can be rewarding to target, Orsbourn says. If they can be lured back to regular customers, it is multiples of revenue.

Orsbourn recommends operators send two messages a week to two different groups, such as the audience segments mentioned above. They can track how many responses they get. For example, they can create custom coupon codes for each offer and track the number of redemptions to analyze user behavior.

Operators who have the basics down and want to take things further can seek help from digital marketers. "As you get more and more advanced with messaging, companies that can help will have many different segments and will start trying different email text or images or promotional mechanics and will help you understand which ones are most effective," he explains.

Orsbourn makes a point that is easy to miss. Sending email offers to guests incentivizes them to visit a concept. Yet there are benefits for the operator, too. "You're building a better appreciation of who that guest is and how you can provide them the best experience for their needs," he explains.

Dazzling Dine-In Guests

Assuming operators have invested in digital hospitality using practices outlined above, what are some best practices to incorporate into the dine-in experience so that guests who arrive eager to try a restaurant leave delighted with the experience?

Orsbourn mentions Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and author of the popular hospitality book "Setting the Table." Meyer emphasizes that the critical driver of hospitality is not something that is said or done, but how a guest is made to feel.

Orsbourn breaks this down into three parts. First, operators need to understand their guests as people. They need to know their wants and needs. Second, they need to meet those needs: get the right food to the right guests in an appropriate time frame. Third, they must treat guests with warmth, making each table feel they were the most important seating of the evening.

"Independent restaurants are especially good at that," Orsbourn says. "It's at independent restaurants where your face is often recognized, your favorite dish remembered, and the head chef comes out and has a chat about what the guest liked."

"Going 'above and beyond' is often misunderstood as grand gestures, but in many ways, it can be the small things that really matter. For example, a guest on crutches being situated at a table with easy ingress or a romantic couple being situated away from a noisy table full of kids. Small details matter," he says.

"The most important thing to me is making memorable moments," Walchef says when asked what going 'above and beyond' means to him. Memorable moments are the result of operational culture, training, personality and service style. They happen when everything comes together in the right way for the guest, as he explains.

Many of the interpersonal elements are taken care of by hiring the right people for the role and treating them well. When staff are happy to be there, they will naturally treat guests better than when they are watching a clock. Fair pay, benefits, and perks or incentives have a role in staff morale and retention: those little things operators do to reward staff naturally impact the guest experience.

Once the right people are on board, it is often a matter of training them in an operator's values, culture and preferred service style. These are all things that can be defined and taught. It is about creating muscle memory and being clear on why things need to happen. This is not about 'my way' or 'because I said so' but about how little decisions impact the guest experience. "Being on the floor is the number one thing," says Alex Smith, founder and president of Atlas Restaurant Group, commenting on one of the most crucial roles of the on-premises dining independent restaurant manager. "You have to be on the floor engaging with guests, at the host stand to resolve any issues, touching tables."

Managers should follow suit. Instead of staying in the back office or expediting in the kitchen, Smith believes they belong on the floor, building relationships with guests. Smith knows that some operators can lose track of the reason they got into the business in the first place and "get stuck in a rut where they are trying to pass days." He strongly believes that getting out on the floor and talking to guests is the cure for these blues. This simple practice can remind operators why they got into the business in the first place and motivate them to recommit by investing in the basics, like hospitality.

Taking Care of People

"I love taking care of people," Smith says. He loves watching the expression on a guest's face when they are blown away by incredible food or warm and caring service. Being on the floor reminds him why he got into the business and inspires him to do better.

Operators cannot be there all the time. To maintain a consistent guest experience, they need trustworthy people they can rely on to act in their stead. Smith recommends operators identify capable and driven employees and train them in hospitality. "This should be their career, their passion. It is your best employees who are passionate about hospitality. It is easy for them to talk about food and wine because they love it," he says.

Employees who think of it as a job, instead of a career or a calling, are not suited for this role. Once the right people are identified, operators should provide training to build employees' comfort level and skills. As they develop experience and become more confident, they will be able to keep the guest experience elevated in the operator's absence.