In 2014 the food industry contributed S$14.4 billion to the economy of Singapore and supported 296,400 jobs. This statistics clearly show the immense potential this sector holds in the Singapore market, seeing which many aspiring restaurateurs have set their foot on this lucrative domain. And this very thing has increased the rate of competition in the Singapore F&B industry exponentially. One of the best ways restaurants can survive is by providing exceptional customer service which will help them build a band of loyal customers. This goal will be augmented when restaurants start taking customer feedback and working on them to hone their business as per customer preference. Here comes the importance of having a restaurant feedback form, that will help you comprehend what your customers think about you which is extremely important if you want to be on their favorite list.
A restaurant feedback form should essentially help you take all the customer details so that you can build a robust repository of customer data. In addition to this, instead of making it generic, you can automate your feedback forms by making it customer specific considering the orders placed by them. Such instances will help you understand your customers’ preference and point of view better, on which you can work further to optimize your restaurant service.
Paper-Based Restaurant Feedback Form Or An App – A Handy Comparison
Singapore restaurant industry has witnessed the shift from the era of legacy POS to the new-age cloud-based restaurant management systems. When the restaurateurs of Singapore are automating the entire restaurant operations, why will the feedback forms be left behind? There are several reasons why a paper-based restaurant feedback form is not recommended.
- Taking feedback on paper-based forms are labor intensive as it involves the need for the restaurant staff to manually upload all the customer details to the CRM and check the reviews, and considering the labor shortage that thrives in Singapore, this is a task that is often neglected and not properly monitored.
- Paper-based forms open the chances of misplacing the forms and wear and tier.
- You obviously cannot ask for specific feedback on the basis of what your customers ordered on a paper-based restaurant feedback form. Restaurant feedback forms are usually printed beforehand and hence they do not include the feedbacks for the specific items ordered by the different customers.
- When a customer gives a negative review, unless you check it in real-time, you will hardly get to know. While in a busy rush hour, one can hardly expect the restaurant staff to view the forms diligently, it leaves the scope of letting your customers leave your restaurant disgruntled.
- Paper-based restaurant feedback forms are long, hence it often tires the customer to fill it up after a sumptuous meal. On the other hand, viewing all the forms, segmenting the customer information and uploading them in the CRM, and finally taking actions to appease the disgruntled customers is a labor-intensive task. And considering the shortage of labor that is predominant in the Singapore restaurant industry, this task is often neglected and the piles of paper-based restaurant feedback forms return to garbage in time.
5 Things to Remember While Crafting A Restaurant Feedback App
One of the best ways to counter the stiff competition that is present in the Singapore F&B space is to automate the restaurant operations and to reduce the dependency on the manual labor, that will accentuate the restaurant customer service, and hence help you in creating a band of loyal customers. For this, you need to know what your customers think of you. This can be achieved if you automate your feedback forms and make the appropriate changes that will appease the customers. Below we have mentioned the major things that should be present in the restaurant feedback app, that will optimize the entire feedback taking process exceptionally.
1. Integrate it with CRM
Unlike restaurant feedback forms, a restaurant feedback app when synced with the restaurant POS will automatically update the customer information like the name, contact details, email address and the order details to the CRM database. This will reduce the need for your restaurant to manually update the customer information, this is not only time-saving, but it also reduces your dependency on manual labor while minimizing the chances of mistakes while updating.
Customer information is immensely valuable and hence, keeping a robust repository is extremely important. Automating this process will ensure that you have the rich goldmine for customer detail, and correspondingly run targeted marketing campaigns. You can run SMS and email marketing campaigns, and send your customers’ personalized greetings on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, along with customized offers and discounts which they can avail.
Considering the importance of running loyalty programs is not unknown. Loyalty programs help a restaurant to keep the customers hitched to the restaurant for a long time. While loyalty programs are good, crafting personalized loyalty programs from the information gathered from the CRM database will help you be ahead of all your competitors in the Singapore F&B space. Hence, increase your customer retention with POS integrated loyalty programs. This clearly shows that a restaurant feedback app when integrated with the CRM will bolster your marketing efforts like never before.
2. Sync with the Restaurant POS System
Paper-based restaurant feedback form is open to the risk of misplacing the forms or being ruined while handling. Such instances can be avoided if you have a feedback app on board. Since the form will be synced with the restaurant POS system, all the customer data are stored on the cloud. Since these are the contact details which you need to nurture to convert the first-timers into loyal ones, you can hardly take any risks with them.
3. Make The Restaurant Feedback Form customer Specific
Restaurant feedback forms are mostly printed beforehand and hence they cannot be made specifically as per the customers’ orders. And many times, customers can hardly place their point of view primarily because they are extremely generic and leaves little scope for customer discretion and are seen troublesome by many customers to fill out. This is where a feedback app will come to your rescue.
Restaurant feedback app when integrated with the restaurant POS will generate specific customer feedback forms based on the items ordered by the particular customer. This makes the reviews even more specific and accurate, and hence filling the form becomes more engaging for the customer while analyzing this data gets easier for the restaurant staff.
4. Enable Real-Time Alerts
It is nearly impossible for your restaurant staff to view all the restaurant feedback forms in real-time in order to react to the negative reviews. However, considering the fact that letting customers leave your restaurant with a bad taste in the mouth will hinder your aim of creating a loyal band of customers, you need to look for alternatives.
And a restaurant feedback app will be that alternative. Enable the feature in the app that will send you real-time alerts whenever you receive a negative review, and this will help you take instant action. On receiving a negative review you must apologize, and try and appease them by offering some complementary item or by providing them an offer or a discount which they can avail the next time they visit your restaurant. Such actions will make your customers feel that their views are given due importance, it will also give you an option to serve them once more and rectify your faults and sweep them off their feet with splendid customer service.
5. Make it Easier for Customers And The Restaurant Staff
While crafting the restaurant feedback app make sure that you make the process simple. Restaurant feedback app enhances customer service since the customers are spared from filling up generic forms that might not even apply to them. Hence, many times customers might not be even interested in filling all the details, and this will make all your efforts of garnering feedback redundant.
Not only will restaurant feedback app simplify the process for the customers, but it will also help the restaurant staff in ways more than one. Firstly, it will reduce the task of the employees of manually updating all the customer information to the CRM. Secondly, even if they do try and update, comprehending the illegible handwriting or the scope of an error in entering the data that possess a great hindrance in creating a robust CRM, can be blissfully avoided.
If you want to make your restaurant one of your customers’ favorite, it is exceptionally important that you take feedback from them, and work on them accordingly. While feedback can be taken both on the paper-based forms and on an app, we highly recommend you to go for the latter. This is especially so because since the Singapore F&B industry has high labor turnover rates and a rampant labor shortage, restaurateurs here must look for ways that will reduce their dependency on manual labor and help them run their restaurants with limited staff.
Keep the above-mentioned tips in mind and create your very own restaurant feedback form on an app, and see, how it boosts your restaurant service and helps you increase repeat customers.
