Satisfy Your Customers

In today’s food service industry, customer service has definitely taken a turn for the worst. Think of the last time you were out with your family or stopped quickly through the drive through of the local fast food joint to pick up dinner. Were you completely satisfied with everything that took place? Did the person that was serving you even look at you or speak to you? It is amazing how little people in the food industry care. If you are a small business owner in the restaurant business, one of the best things you can do to make your business prosperous is by making sure your customers are satisfied. Three things you can do to make sure your customers stay satisfied are to hire customer-oriented employees, being intolerant of disrespect of customers, and make certain that if a customer is dissatisfied with something, they leave feeling better about that negative situation.One of the ways to make sure that your customers stay satisfied is to hire customer oriented employees. This means making sure they are honest, dependable and have a great attitude. Some of the worst offenders of customers’ sensibilities are those who already have a bad attitude or worse, who just don’t care at all one way or the other whether the customer is satisfied or not. Finding good employees is a very difficult thing to do. It might require paying slightly more than the average restaurant employee makes, but in the end, it is well worth having someone who actually cares about your customers and their needs.Another way that you can ensure the satisfaction of your patrons is to make sure that you, under no circumstances, tolerate customer dissatisfaction or disrespect. The way that employees become complacent or assume that it is acceptable to treat patrons without respect is that immediate action is usually not taken after the first offense of an employee to a consumer. With situations of disrespect to one of your customers, you should take decisive and immediate action. Termination may not be necessary, but something strong and swift must be done as a consequence to prevent further such instances.Finally, remember that there are always going to be situations that are going to leave some patrons dissatisfied. In these cases, try to turn a negative into a positive. Things that can accomplish this are free products, coupons for discounts, and in some cases, just a kind word of apology from the employee or manager of the establishment. Making up for the mistake that is made by paying for that customer’s lunch costs money, but you increase your chances of that person coming back to patronize your business again.Customers are the most important part of the food service industry. Without the patron, there is no reason to sell or make food. Keeping them happy is something that is very high up on the priority list for a business owner. Making sure you hire customer service oriented employees, do not tolerate customer dissatisfaction, and try to make any negative situation positive can make your business stand out among many who do not satisfy the needs of their customers.