3 Ways to Improve Restaurant Customer Service with Virtual Queuing & Digital Menus

 

 

More customers is a good thing for restaurants, however more customers often equates to longer waiting times.

This can also mean more opportunities for walkouts, disappointed customers, and lost sales.

 

 

Restaurants are turning to technology to “turn tables” faster to reduce the time customers spend waiting for a table.

Many places are using alternative solutions to assist customers in choosing their order from digital menus and paying their checks more efficiently using tablets.

 

 

In addition to speeding up the service at each table, restaurants can focus on ways to reduce the real and perceived wait times at the other end of the spectrum.

 

By keeping those who are waiting happy, restaurants can stand to increase the perception of customer service and decrease the number of customers who walk away unfed or unhappy with the time they just spent waiting for a table.

Now, in these pandemic times, virtual queuing and digital menus applications, which can run on mobile devices, improve the customer service experience in 3 important ways:

 

1. Customers can choose to wait outside in the surroundings, in comfort and safe

Virtual queuing applications that integrate with text messaging allow customers to register for their place in line then receive text messages as they near the front of the virtual waiting line. This gives customers the opportunity to walk around, run errands, or even sit at the bar and relax.

 

 

2. Customers can reserve their spot in line, without queueing around other people

Virtual queuing systems can provide mobile access, allowing customers to reserve a spot in line without queueing up.

This can automatically reduce perceived wait times and commits the patron to pass by competing restaurants and head straight to their planned destination. Restaurants need to manage expectations from the time patrons enter the waiting line to the time they pay their bills. Virtual queuing offers one way to keep the first impression a more positive one and keep more customers from walking out the door.

 

 

3. Digital Menus allow Patrons to choose their meal without touching the traditional menus

Contactless alternatives are the best new solutions for catering businesses, mostly now during COVID-19 constraints.

Customers do not have to touch it, but also digital menus can incorporate value-added content or other entertaining aspects to lower perceived wait time during the ordering process.

 

 

Learn more about two freeware solutions to improve “starving” customers experience:

 

 

 

15.05.2020