Restaurants Can Beat the Chains – Exceed the Guest’s Expectations
Restaurants Can Beat the Chains – Exceed the Guest’s Expectations
Larry Edger
Restaurant marketing is an eternal project than begins before your doors open and continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The art of combining communication, selling and delivery of your product will directly impact the level of success you achieve in any business. In the typical restaurant enterprise, you can only survive with repeat business. Return customers are the ultimate culmination and reward of the marketing process.
The whole complicated marketing strategy can be summed up in four words meeting the guest’s expectations. This is where the chains shine. You really don’t go into a Taco Bell anticipating a life changing experience or an Olive Garden for the most romantic experience of your life. Both of these restaurants, at two ends of the price scale, offer customers only decent food for the price, in a reasonable atmosphere, with acceptable service and convenience. That is it! No more, no less, and that is what they deliver consistently.
As an independent restaurant you have to learn from the chains. It’s not enough to be as good as they are, but you have to figure out what they don’t do. Essentially, you must exceed the guest’s expectations. I know of one restaurant owner who spent very little money on the exterior of the building. However, the minute you walked in the door your first impressions were dashed by the gorgeous surroundings you found yourself in. The owner’s philosophy was to immediately impress the guest. Your food cannot be the same as other restaurants in your class – it must excel. Service must have a surprise; friendlier, more personable or more extravagant.
If a prospective customer has never tasted your food, seen your restaurant or experienced your service, what would they expect the experience on their first visit to be? Good food? Good service? Good experience? That is mediocre enough! That applies to most of your competition and certainly the vast majority of the chains. How low on the scale of mediocrity can you go before you fail due to being like everyone else?
One of the most difficult learning experiences I have had in the restaurant business is figuring out the subjective views of diners. Opinions vary on what is good food or at least acceptable food. Even more diversity is assured when assessing service. My expectations, when dining out may be much lower than someone else. What motivates me to revisit or recommend a restaurant may be miles apart from the next guest.
While we offer 50 different ways to market your restaurant in The Restaurant Ebook, here are some things over the years that have placed one restaurant or another firmly in my mind;
•A restaurant once served our group a sample of their Sangria of the evening as we were seated. It was not only unexpected, but refreshing while waiting on our server. Great way to minimize wait, sell a product and create an unexpected service.
•My party once enjoyed the welcoming sounds of a Mexican roaming band as we were seated and a bow with a welcome in Spanish that the server subsequently explained as tradition in Hidalgo to treat guests as special family.
•While making a reservation for a special occasion, the person on the phone asked if I would like a rose at the lady’s plate for a charge, which I quickly accepted.
•Another run down shack of a place in the Florida keys, served the freshest seafood possible, since behind the shack were fishermen bringing their catch in, cleaning them and straight to the table after choosing your cooking method. From the front, the restaurant was not looking like the fresh food venue it turned out to be. Awesome fish, crabs and spiny lobster. They vastly exceeded my expectations.
•Fast food (as well as chains) is a rare choice for me, but I do try new restaurants of all types. Recently a new chain of hamburger QSR’s expanded into my area. I kept hearing about their great hamburger. There were several media articles about the chain, but that wasn’t what motivated me. The first time I heard about the chain was a customer at one of my restaurants who told me about a grand opening of one of the locations. He told me how good the hamburger was and that it was free. The chain offered free food on opening day. A subsequent guest mentioned the chain and the quality of the burger. Two referrals were enough to motivate me! Their product was very good, but they were masters of marketing.
Here are some lessons learned;
•The free food on opening day made a lot of sense. It cost no more than an advertising blitz would have cost and got people talking!
•The first thing on their short menu board (about eight items) was their “famous†burger supposedly voted No. 1 at various venues around the country. It also happened to be the most expensive thing on the board, a double burger at .89 with your choice of additions free.
•French fries were “hand-cutâ€, but the real kicker was after filling the Styrofoam cup they served them in and placing it in the bag with the burger, they threw in another handful of fries on top of the contents. This last detail made it seem you were getting more for your money and there are few people who haven’t reached in the bag to snag a French fry or two before un-wrapping the burger or while driving home. By the way, the fries were .69, no bargain, but the delivery of the product made you forget the price.
•Finally, their product, the burger. There was nothing to dislike! They did it right. The cooks placed the burgers on the griddle, without smashing the juices out of it on the turn. After the first turn the bun went on top for steaming. The two slices of cheese were placed on the sandwich and wrapped in plain foil which produced a perfectly melted cheese and moist, juicy burger. It was better than most QSR’s, as well it should when you walk out with a .13 bill including tax and drink from a fast food joint.
These and many other memories make the exceptional restaurant stand way out in front of the mediocre and poor experiences I have encountered. When someone is in the area of one of the operations above, I can recommend these extraordinary experiences to them. That is great marketing when it brings new guests and cements a relationship with an old customer.
What makes your restaurant stand out in the guest’s mind? For more ideas see what other restaurants are doing at Restaurant in the Weeds. Creating an unforgettable memory will bring more guests than a month’s worth of newspaper advertising.
Multi-concept restaurant owner, author of The Restaurant Ebook as well as other titles.
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