How to Check Guest Satisfaction in Restaurant + Tips to Increase It

Of the countless guests who come through your door, how many leave completely satisfied with their experience? The happier a customer is, the more likely they are to come back and recommend your restaurant to others.

But how to check guest satisfaction in a restaurant? How can you find out what aspects clients enjoyed and where they would like to see improvement? Read on to find out:

Importance of customer satisfaction in restaurant industry

You can hire the best chef and source quality ingredients, but if guests are not happy with their overall experience at the restaurant, your business will not survive. Here is why restaurant guest satisfaction is one of the most important factors for your food business’s success:

• Get more loyal customers: if clients enjoyed their dining experience, they are more likely to choose your place again when they want to go out because they know they can rely on good food and great service;
• Grow your reputation: when guests have a good time, they will boast about your restaurant to their friends and family, and they may also leave a positive review;
• Attract more new customers: as a direct result of the endorsement from the existing happy customers, new people will be tempted to visit your restaurant and see for themselves;
• Increase your revenue: when you grow your number of new and loyal customers, you ensure that you have not only a stable means of income, but also a constantly growing one.

How to check guest satisfaction in restaurant

You can always spend some time in your restaurant to notice if your guests are having a great time. But this will only give you a limited view, and you need to measure more in-depth to be able to improve your business.

Check out these easy ways to monitor and measure restaurant guest satisfaction:

1. Track valuable analytics

How to check guest satisfaction in restaurant? By measuring how many of your clients come back!

The good news is that you can easily do so if you use the QR code menu from GloriaFood.

The system is equipped with a powerful Reports module that gives you access to valuable restaurant insights such as:

• The number and value of orders
• Best-selling dishes
• The number of new and returning clients

 You can select different periods to see how many returning guests you have in a week, in a month, or in a semester.

2. Check your reviews

77% of diners check restaurant reviews before they choose a place to dine. This makes it clear that reviews are not only the place for guests to share their opinion of your restaurant, but they will also heavily influence potential clients’ decisions.

Therefore, if you see how satisfied your customers are, you must make it a habit to look over your online reviews. Here are a few tips to efficiently manage them:

• Don’t let them drop under 4 stars: many people won’t visit a restaurant with a rating under 4 stars, so you will lose clients. You can offer small encouragements, like a free dessert, to grow your number of positive reviews;
• Respond to negative reviews: this will give you a chance to solve the problems guests encountered and maybe even change their opinion for the better;
• Use the provided feedback to improve business: for example, if a customer complained about service, it would be a great idea to provide servers with extra training on how to handle clients, and maybe a bonus awarded for employees who bring in good reviews.

Read more: The Importance of Online Reviews for Restaurants & How to Get More

3. Directly ask clients on social media

Sometimes, the best answer to “How to check guest satisfaction in a restaurant?” is to ask clients directly. You will gain some useful insight and great recommendations that will help you make your business better for your customers.

You have two main options:

• Share a post on your profile: asking people to rate how satisfied they are with their experience, what they like most about your restaurant, or what they would like to see improved;
• Ask for feedback in Instagram stories: if you don’t want the answers to be public, you can post a poll or an open question in your stories. You will receive the answers privately, and you can reply to each, thanking them for the time they took to voice their opinion.

4. Hand out a satisfaction survey

If you want to get an answer on more specific topics, such as “Is the food satisfactory?”, “Would you like to see more vegan options?”, or “Is the service model working for you?” you can create a survey.

Note down the topic you are interested in and formulate questions that can be answered shortly. Then you can either hand out surveys in a restaurant, at the end of the meal, or send them through email.

Read more: 25 Restaurant Survey Questions to Help You Gain Valuable Insight

How to improve guest satisfaction in a restaurant

Now that you know how to check guest satisfaction in a restaurant, it is time to find new ways to improve the guest experience so you can get more positive reviews and increase the number of loyal clients. Check out these useful tips.

1. Make it easy and fast for clients to order

One of the main complaints customers have is the long waiting time. Even if the food is good, people won’t enjoy having to spend most of their time having to flag down a waiter to place an order or ask for their check.

A great way to get rid of this problem and instantly improve restaurant guest satisfaction is to use an on-premise ordering system via QR code.

Once clients are seated, they can just scan the QR code on the table, browse the menu leisurely, and order and pay when they are ready, all by using their phone.

Moreover, this takes away some of the responsibilities from your employees, so they can focus on providing irreproachable service to every customer.

Here’s how easy it is to set this up in minutes:

2. Focus on training your employees in customer service

Even if you hire people with previous restaurant experience, they may lack skills in some areas, which will negatively affect the customer experience. To have staff provide customers with the best possible service, you must first give them the knowledge and encouragement to do so.

Therefore, make it a priority to provide training on:

• The food you provide, food and drink pairings, and cross-selling recommendations;
• How to handle upset or rude customers;
• How to greet customers and get to know them so you can make better food suggestions.

Read more: Restaurant Staff Training 101: How to Improve Efficiency with Practical Training Methods

3. Set up standardized restaurant operating procedures

Another common complaint noticeable in restaurant reviews is the food inconsistency. For example, a client visits for the first time, and they get the best food. They come a second time, and the same food is now undercooked and in a smaller portion.

Mistakes can happen, but they happen more often when there are no standardized restaurant operating procedures in place. By setting up these procedures and enforcing them, you ensure:

• You have a standard recipe for each menu item that gets followed every time;
• People stick to health and safety procedures when preparing food items;
• People follow the cooking and prepping times to the letter to ensure each dish will be the exact same as the previous ones;
• Employees are more efficient at their jobs because they know their responsibilities.

Read more: An Easy Guide to Restaurant SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)

4. Allow people to book a table online

When people are researching new places to eat, you want them to reach your website because there, you can use your attractive menu to convince them to visit you.

For this, you need a sales and SEO-optimized website that will rank you high in searches, where people searching for your type of cuisine will find you. If you don’t have one, you can generate one in less than 10 minutes using the GloriaFood restaurant website builder.

The website will lead people to your menu and other important information, tempting people to place an order. Another great feature of this website is that it has an integrated free table reservation system.

This way, people can book a table with a few clicks on your website and not have to worry about not finding a free table when they arrive.

Moreover, if they are in a hurry, they can also pre-order what they want to eat and pay online, so they can enjoy their food shortly after their arrival.

5. Make cleanliness a priority

A sure-fire way to get a bad review is to serve food that causes illness or have a dirty restaurant. Sometimes it can also lead to fines and even closure. To avoid any of these problems, you must make cleanliness a priority, both in the kitchen and outside it.

Have the staff responsible for cleaning make the rounds every two hours or even more often, and teach them to pay attention to often ignored areas such as kitchen sinks and under the tables.

Read more: The Ultimate Restaurant Cleaning Checklist [Free & Easy]

Final words

As you now know how to check guest satisfaction in the restaurant, it is time to find out how happy your customers are with the service you provide. Even if you score high, you can always do better, and the tips provided above will ensure you keep getting positive reviews.