Running a restaurant is both exciting and fast-paced, and as a restaurant owner, you’ll know that efficiency is paramount. Evaluating your processes over time is vital to improving your success. With these ideas in mind, let’s consider four ways that you can increase efficiency.
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Improve table management
Effective table management is essential to running an efficient restaurant. You’ll need to know exactly how many tables you have and know exactly what time your diners arrived. With this info, you can tell any walk-in guests what the wait time will be. When you have bigger tables, pre-plan their space in the restaurant. To help you out, table management software can be an excellent investment to streamline these processes. Such systems allow you to digitally view all stages of your customer’s dining. From here, you can see who is ready to pay their bill or order their first course. Software like this makes it easier to increase the productivity of your restaurant. While you’re at it, think about how effective your card machines are. Square terminals are a great option; you can use a machine like this for fast and effective use at the table.
Online booking
Providing an online booking system is a great tool for any restaurant. Customers can book a table and time slot with the click of a button, with no need to ring the restaurant. The booking is automatically factored into your system so that you can adjust your table plans accordingly. With an online booking system, your staff don’t have to spend as much time taking or canceling bookings on the phone. It’s all there online for you to view before continuing with your other tasks. Much of the time, customers will want to call and make bookings outside of your business hours. Without an online booking form, they may end up booking elsewhere!
Increase loyalty
To run an efficient restaurant, you’ll want to gain as many loyal customers as you can. Without a solid customer base- it doesn’t matter how good the food may be! To increase loyalty to your brand, special offers are great idea to boost your sales. As well as this, why not offer a few events? There might be a band who you could hire to play for your diners one night? Or you could offer a bottomless prosecco brunch? Special events like this can be a great marketing idea.
Staff training
Your employees are the heart of your restaurant, so it pays to keep them well trained. It’s a good idea to evaluate performance overall, so you know how to theme your training sessions. Each time that you get a new piece of software, whether for tables or online booking, properly train your staff on how to use it. Human error can be far reduced if staff continue to learn new things all of the time.
Lastly, remember to gain customer feedback on your restaurant and overall service. If you utilise the opinions of your customers, you’ll be able to improve your overall efficiency and services.
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