The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused huge losses to restaurants and bars worldwide. The survey conducted by National Restaurant Association shows that about 17% or 1,10,000 of America’s restaurants have closed in 2020, and 87% of restaurants reported an average 36% drop in revenue. As the prospects are bleak, the need of the hour is to manage your restaurant and bar more efficiently.
3 Key factors to successfully manage your restaurant and bar
Managing restaurant operations successfully involves a combined effort of many people. Let’s quickly go through the major elements in successfully managing your restaurant and bar operations.
Efficient management of restaurant staff – In any restaurant, employees play a crucial role as they are the ones who closely interact with the diners. Provide your staff with periodic training sessions on the various tips and techniques to deal with customers. Training helps them polish their skills and make corrections wherever necessary. In the wake of COVID-19, customers have become more hygiene conscious. Hence train your staff on the importance of adopting safety measures and social distancing protocols.
Have an open door policy where employees can approach you with new ideas and suggestions. They should have a sense of belonging and a feeling that they have your back. With the help of smart insights provided by digital restaurant management platforms, you can easily gauge the performance of various staff members. Recognise top performers and motivate them with rewards and appreciations.
Streamlining day-to-day activities of the restaurant – There are various aspects involved in restaurant management such as billing, inventory management, customer data management, sales and supply chain management. Streamlining all these functions is quite easy now, with the help of digital restaurant management platforms. Running short of food items and facing a disappointed customer can be quite embarrassing. You no longer have to worry about running out of inventory, as the system will provide you timely alerts to replenish the stock. Real-time inventory tracking lets you track the stock levels of various outlets from anywhere. It also helps you identify the fast-moving items in the menu, track the sales trends, and curb theft and pilferage at your restaurant.
Leading restaurant management platforms such as inresto offers the unique feature of contactless dining. In these pandemic times, the application creates a safe dining environment for customers by avoiding non-essential interaction with the staff. The other facilities on offers are contactless reservation, contactless booking of seats, digital menu and contactless payments.
Improving customer relationship – The easiest way to increase the footfalls at your restaurant is by providing superior customer service. Pay attention to customer feedback and take immediate measures to fix those issues. Once the complaints are resolved, communicate to the customers about the measures implemented. A rave review by a celebrity diner can change the fortunes of your restaurant forever. At the same time, it should also be kept in mind that a negative review can cause irreparable damage to your brand. Collecting feedback is quite easy with help of digital restaurant management applications. The customer will receive an SMS with the link to the customised feedback form. They rate restaurants based on various parameters such as the quality of food, service and the overall dining experience. Once the customer completes the feedback process, it will notify you.
In the present scenario, many of the customers prefer contactless home deliveries. Make sure that the staff adheres to all the safety measures and deliver the food packets on time. One more effective method of improving customer relations is by implementing a customer loyalty program. Keep the program simple and there should be options to redeem rewards in the form of discounts or freebies. Offering special discounts for your loyal customers will definitely prompt them to make repeated visits at your restaurant. Tracking the impact of the loyalty program will help you get insights on customer repeat rates and Return on Investment (ROI).
Parting Words
Covid-19 has been posing stiff challenges to the food and beverages industry that is already struggling with wafer thin margins. Customers have become too demanding and in order to meet their needs, focussing on the three factors discussed above is of prime importance.
