June 11, 2009

Enhancing the Customer Experience

Dear Friends,

When it comes to providing an overall customer experience, fast casual restaurants seem to have the market covered. After all, the fastest-growing segment of the restaurant industry has for several years given consumers an overall dining out experience they can't get anywhere else.
This week, we wanted to give our readers some tips on ways they could improve customer service. What we found isn't new, but here are three brands doing each one well...

Source: Fast Casual

1. Keeping it Clean:

My wife have this tendency to always stop at a hotel (must be atleast 4 stars) to clear her bladder. She would rather drive several miles through a traffic congestion just to make sure that we are at a hotel for her to do her stuffs. And, it doesn't not end there, like in the article, she won't stop to eat at just any restaurant. It must have a clean washroom. I guess its just her way of making sure that the place is clean.

There was one time, when we were at a restaurant in KL. It has a very nice embiance, light music in the background, ample lighting, very good food and great service. The place looks clean, no prints on the glasses (ya.. we always notice prints on the glasses), presentatble chef with a tall hat that walks around and ask the diners what they think of the food. In fact it was one of the best place we had dinner.

Since it was the perfect place for dinner, she didn't have much to complain about. Except for the one question we were debating about, which is why the chef needs to have a tall hat (can someone enlighten me on this?).

We paid the bill and was leaving the restaurant at about just over an hour. But no, she had to re-apply her lipstick and had to make a beeline to the ladies....

She came out about 30 seconds later, i thought this was unusual, she usually takes about 6hrs and 43 mins to apply her lipstick. We got in the car in a hurry like as though we were being chased by a mutant toilet bowl on a rampage and she said... "That was the last time we are going there for dinner." I later learned that the washroom had a women's pad covered in **urghh** you know what right there in the washig bowl.

It could have returned about a month later, but she decided not to as the images of that sanitary pad still lingers in her mind. Maybe we'll come back in 5 years time. :)

2. Meet and Greet:

Need i say more? This is the simplest thing that anybody can do, and it not only makes a HUGE difference in terms of customer experiance, it lifts the morale of your staffs when they see that the customers appreciates it.

Everyone knows that a smile is contagious and it lifts the mood of the person giving and recieving.


3. Offer More than Whats Expected:
Now, here is something that we can all say and not do much. Anyways, have you ever taken a look at any Eatout Dining Guide? Now here’s the thing.. What do you see in most Dining Guide?

-Pictures of food
-Menu
-Address
-Hmm… ya… some have comments
-Ummm…

Yup… that's it, and then what do you do? You wait for response. How in the world can some one search for the dining guide if it’s ranked 156 in Google? You are right, they can’t.

Now here is what Eatout Malaysia provides:

-No Contracts... you can quit anytime, you'll NEVER be charged another penny... so there's absolutely NO RISK to you!

-No Setup Fees... no extras, no hidden costs, no sudden bills in the mail – EVER!

-You’ll Get Proof It Works... we’ll send you with a Statistics Report every month showing you how many diners saw your restaurant and how many of these studied your menus. Along with the stats for the whole website.

-15 Stunning Photos... taken by our own professional photographer, ALL INCLUDED – worth over RM 500!

-Make Unlimited Changes... to your menus, wine lists etc, at NO extra cost. Change your menu once a week, we don’t mind.

-Changes Made Within 24 Hours... Guaranteed and at NO extra cost, send in your new menus and we’ll have them changed in 24 hours.

-Add A Printable Specials Coupon... or voucher to encourage new diners to try your restaurant, again at no extra cost!

-Add Any Reviews... or articles from newspapers or magazines for diners to read.

-Add Your Own Newsletter... to add interest for new diners

-You’ll Get An Interactive Map... not only will this appear right on our own page but is specially designed to be printed with your name, address & phone number on it

-FREE Reservations Facility... we don’t charge for any table bookings.

-FREE Email Facility... so if diners just want to ask a question without making a booking, they can.

-Anti Spam... we’ve paid to put in extra security on all our online forms so you’ll never get any of those nasty emails selling unmentionables to you.

-We’ll Ring You Every 4 Months... to check if you have any updates needed. We know how busy you can get and sometimes it’s very hard to remember to update the website too.

-No Other Advertising Clutter... anywhere on Eatout to distract diners or take up valuable space, just restaurants, that’s all diners want to see.

-Your email address is safe with us... we’ll NEVER sell or give your contact details away. We NEVER send any other advertising not related to Eatout via email.

-We only post good comments... about your restaurant. Sounds unfair but we’ve found it’s far more valuable to send negative comments straight to you so you can fix any problems, rather than leave them on the site forever, giving the wrong impression!

-Guaranteed Fair & Equal Placement in lists... No need to worry about what letter of the alphabet your restaurant starts with cause it doesn’t matter with our unique random rotation of all listings! Oh, and you can’t pay us to get listed any higher either!

-FREE Link... to your own website AND we’ll record how many diners we sent there in your monthly report.

-$100 Gift Card... is given away each month to a lucky diner, paid for by us.
Our Heavy Advertising On Google... generates 1000’s of eager diners keen to find new restaurants.

-You’ll get FREE cards... to give away to your diners, not only to advertise you’re on Eatout-Malaysia but to encourage your diners to write some good comments about you.

-You’ll Get Instant Access To 1000’s of Diners... already searching Google each month looking for restaurants.

-Reap the Rewards... by taking part in our hugely successful Birthday Email, designed so diners just can’t resist spending their birthday dinner with you.
We’ll Keep You Up To Date... each month with a Newsletter to keep you posted on all the cool new things we’re always adding to the site

Now that's what I call going the extra mile and that's what “Offer More than Expected” is all about.

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