You’ve probably already felt it in your restaurant – guests have lost patience with supply chain issues, staffing shortages and training problems – even if these issues are still part of daily life in your restaurant. Recent research from Ipsos about consumer expectations of restaurants confirmed that people expect that restaurants have found solutions to these problems by now and should be able to offer seamless experiences. If you struggle to do that, lean on communication to ensure you don’t alienate guests. For example, Ipsos found that many restaurants fail to communicate consistently, particularly when using technologies that enable pickup and delivery. Nearly one-quarter of restaurants fail to confirm an order or provide a pick-up time, 19 percent don’t provide clear pick-up instructions and 70 percent fail to notify customers when their order is ready. Further, it found that restaurants force consumers to use their app for communication instead of their preferred channel – which might be an indication that the restaurant app experience could be improved. In your restaurant, could you fine-tune your guest experience by making small adjustments to your communication and ideally automating your digital communication? That could include ensuring guests are greeted promptly upon entry to the restaurant, confirming their order contents, and keeping them up to date about the process of preparing their order. Making tweaks in these areas could help you get a little grace from guests in other areas where you may still be struggling. It’s competitive out there: According to research from the National Restaurant Association, 47 percent of operators expect competition to be more intense than last year. To be sure, the number of tools that operators have at their disposal to collect data and draw conclusions from it are raising the bar for competition. But despite the reams of metrics operators can study about their business, gaining an edge (and building authentic connections with guests) still really comes down to traditional marketing and public relations – knowing who you want to be, understanding your audience and why people come to you, and then crafting options and offers that fit neatly into their lives. This is especially critical if your business looks very similar to others in your neighborhood. A recent report from Modern Restaurant Management demonstrates the power of understanding your uniqueness in a crowded field. It shared case studies of two coffee shops operating in similar environments – they were in comparable city locations, had many competitors nearby, and had similar menus and interiors. On the surface, one might think of these businesses as interchangeable. But one business positioned itself as a destination for people working in nearby corporations, while the other positioned itself as an expert about coffee. This key difference was the seed that helped the businesses craft distinct events, social media posts, menus, atmospheres, you name it. So what makes your business unique? Understanding this and communicating it clearly to the public is the first step in building the loyalty that your restaurant needs to succeed. When you think back to how you set out to connect to potential customers during the pandemic, does it feel like anything has changed since then when it comes to both your marketing and interpersonal communication with guests? It wouldn’t be surprising if so. After all, restaurants hardly had a chance to recover from COVID lockdowns when they were suddenly thrust into managing rising inflation, supply chain snags and ongoing labor challenges, among other difficulties. Operators moved from one existential crisis to another, but the emotions these crises evoked have been very different. The pandemic brought out a softer, more emotional side to communication – something that may have been lost in the months since. It’s worth taking a look at how your efforts to connect with guests during the pandemic were effective then because they could be what solidifies guests’ loyalty to you now. How did you make people – guests and employees – feel supported? How did you share your restaurant’s story in different, human, surprising ways? A recent Modern Restaurant Management report about the importance of emotional intelligence in business communication shares some signs that your restaurant could be lacking it: A few examples include leaning on one message for all guests versus employing more personalized communication, providing inadequate responses to guest feedback, and emphasizing more on what you’re offering as opposed to how it benefits guests. Knowing this, could you make any improvements to how you’re connecting with the public? The past few years have been hard – but don’t let them harden the human approach that continues to win with consumers. Retaining staff is more difficult in an environment that is especially rewarding for the voluntary quitter: Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that as of February, people who switched jobs saw their pay increase by 7.7 percent (compared to a 5.6 percent rise for staff who stayed in their role). While it’s true that people who switch jobs generally gain in pay, the increase is normally around .7 percentage points – not 2.1. So getting staff to stick around is more challenging now. However, retaining these people may have just as much to do with communication as with wages. To smooth relations with your team, make sure you have a vehicle for communicating with them in a timely way about everything from shift updates to menu changes so they aren’t caught by surprise – particularly if you’re operating several restaurants and have staff working at a combination of them. The Rail also suggests restaurants keep all policies, procedures in a digital format so information is easy to access and doesn’t fall through the cracks or get misinterpreted. Then provide some outlets to allow your managers to focus on the individual: Have a weekly or monthly one-on-one chat with each employee in neutral territory so they feel free to voice any concerns and discuss development opportunities. At the same time, also provide a means of allowing staff to share a problem anonymously via a physical or virtual suggestion box. Finally, encourage a fun, communal spirit on your team by gathering them for regular meals where you can set the scene for people to get to know others outside of their roles on staff. When so many supplies are scarce and restaurant operators are facing mounting pressure to source popular menu ingredients or suitable substitutes, cutting corners on sustainability is understandable. But increasingly, consumers hinge their spending on the degree of trust they have in the ethics of a business. Further, any sustainability risks within your supply chain could damage the value of your brand, impact your ability to adapt to change and make it difficult to remain in business. Being clear about your own mission and values can help you communicate them to suppliers, employees, investors and customers — and help you hold yourself and others accountable. In a recent report from New Food Magazine, Rick Sanderson, founder of the STAR Index ESG Platform, advises brands to focus on four P’s to gauge their starting point in this effort and to actively monitor progress: people, politics, platforms and partners. Do you have people around you who can adapt to ever-changing conditions and who ideally bring some external insights to their work? Are all departments and influencers in your business aligned in their willingness to adapt to changes, or do you have skeptics who need to be persuaded? Do you have the technology platforms needed to monitor and measure your progress, as well as to communicate with customers, suppliers and other parties? Are you aligned with partners who can help support your strategy and objectives — and who are motivated by their own mission to improve sustainability? While the early months of the pandemic saw a sharp rise in restaurants’ off-premise sales, many operators with dining rooms are now seeing their in-store business climb back up. But that hasn’t chipped away at the momentum of off-premise sales. In fact, according to a recent consumer survey, 53 percent of respondents now believe food delivery is essential to their life. As long as in-person and off-premise dining options are both available, operators can expect to see demand for them – though the degree of demand in each area may be more difficult to predict. For this reason, it’s become even more important for restaurants to be able to unify their physical and online customer service experiences, providing a seamless transition between them. According to data from PYMNTS’ 2022 Restaurant Friction Index, which considers input provided in September by more than 500 restaurant managers across the country, unifying channels is a top priority for operators, ranking above such factors as payment options, ordering options and loyalty offerings as central to restaurants’ technology plans going forward. Achieving unity starts with understanding your brand and values. What are the key sentiments you want guests of your restaurant to walk away with after they visit your restaurant? Friendliness? Fresh ingredients? Sustainability? How can you weave those messages into your digital channels to ensure your brand identify comes through clearly regardless of where your customers consume their meals from you? Amid supply shortages, rising food prices and wages, and inflation increasing at the highest rate since 1982, restaurant operators have had no choice but to pass some of their costs on to customers. Accordingly, menu price inflation hit a 39-year high in November. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that prices for limited-service restaurants, which have been hit especially hard by labor shortfalls, have increased nearly 8 percent in the past year, while prices for full-service restaurants have increased 6 percent. While the environment continues to pose challenges to restaurants, there are steps operators can take to strengthen their position. In the back of the house, it’s more important than ever to have a keen grasp of menu costs and to use forecasting tools for inventory and sales in order to minimize waste and find suitable substitutes for ingredients that aren’t available. In the front of the house, it’s crucial to show customers that you provide an experience worth paying for – and one that many of them continue to crave as the pandemic keeps people at home. Consider how to make your offerings special – by elevating the dining experience in-house and developing creative menus that guests wouldn’t prepare for themselves at home. Finally, while you don’t necessarily want to draw guests’ attention to price increases, you can share the efforts you are making to contain costs and source quality ingredients. After all, consumers are paying more at the grocery store now too – so a higher bill at their favorite restaurant shouldn’t come as a shock. In recent months, the Covid vaccine has become political – and therefore a heated topic of conversation. Across the country, a restaurant’s (or a municipality’s) decision to mandate vaccines for employees and/or guests has resulted in some unpleasant confrontations – between operators and employees and between guests and employees – and all at a time when restaurants are already struggling to attract and retain staff. While some of these confrontations have been difficult to avoid, a restaurant can decrease the likelihood of conflict by taking steps to communicate clearly, and in advance, with employees about vaccine mandates. A recent report from Human Resource Executive provides some tips. It’s most critical to get out in front of the mandate by discussing it with employees, listening to their concerns and providing them with ample lead time to act. If people are resisting, understand their concerns and personalize your communications around them – they may need to hear the message from someone they can more easily relate to. Also appreciate that an employee may have a valid reason to not get a vaccine, so speak to your legal advisor about how to frame communication about that with staff. In advance of a mandate, determine the consequences of not complying – this goes for employees as well as guests – and find gentle ways to communicate about it. Again here, it helps to get out in front of the mandate and avoid surprising a person with a consequence wherever possible. Finally, while President Biden’s rule about vaccine mandates has made this a more urgent topic of conversation at restaurants, try to keep your conversations with employees politically neutral and focused on the well-being of your team, business and the industry overall. Just weeks ago, it seemed like things were back on the upswing for restaurants. Consumers were eager for a return to eating out and anxiety about gathering indoors was waning across the country. But the rapid spread of the delta variant, and a range of state and local responses to it at both the government and consumer level, has added a new wrinkle to pandemic recovery. For restaurants in various parts of the country, this has meant an increase in no-shows, new rules about the need for vaccines, a lack of clarity on the wearing of masks and Covid-related backlash from the public on restaurant review sites. Communication – to your staff and to your guests – is critical right now. Determine what guidelines you must follow to protect the safety of all, then find friendly, non-confrontational, non-political ways of sharing your approach. Continue to offer multiple options for dining and collecting orders. Expect requests for outdoor dining to continue – and prepare now for accommodating guests outdoors into the cooler months. Consider what to do about no-shows – whether it be charging a deposit on a table or asking for a text or email confirmation of a reservation. Update signage on your entrance, website and social media channels with your approach, indicate that it will likely be changing in the coming weeks, and ask for everyone’s patience as you work hard to keep business going in challenging times. We’re living in an era of personalization. A whopping 91 percent of consumers are more likely to support brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them, according to Accenture research. Before the pandemic, restaurant operators might have been able to identify their most loyal guests as they walked in the door. Technology – while important and helpful – wasn’t necessarily critical to keeping track of what loyal guests liked. Now, it’s clear that technology is needed to track customer preferences and deliver the promotions they want when they want them. This will be especially true as ghost kitchens become more common and guests have less face-to-face interaction with brands. But if brand personalization capabilities sound more feasible for the likes of Starbucks or Panera than for smaller independents, look for that to change soon. Brightloom, the new incarnation of Eatsa, the chain of popular fast-casual restaurants that used robots to prepare salads, is now focused on helping smaller businesses slice and dice their data into actionable information that can be used to build personalized marketing campaigns. (The company has some firepower behind it: Brightloom’s CEO came from Starbucks, where he helped develop the brand’s loyalty rewards program, and mobile order and pay capabilities, among other resources.) Competing businesses are developing similar capabilities, so look for tech-driven personalization to become more accessible for all.
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