How to improve customer service speed at your restaurant

If you are like most restaurant owners, you would be focusing all your efforts on the quality and taste of food you serve to your guests and the environment you create for them to enjoy their meals, but easily overlooking the speed of service – which is the amount of time your restaurant staff take to serve diners. Processing guest orders quickly and accurately while consistently serving them with a smile is an ongoing challenge for restaurant owners.

There is nothing more irritating than standing in a long queue of cars in a drive-through only to get a small quick lunch or waiting 10 minutes to pay your bill after having a nice quick dinner at a great dine-in restaurant. Long waiting times do not only mean a poor customer experience, but lost potential customers and sales as well.That said, improving speed of service should be top of mind for every restaurant operator. We have put together some practices below that will help you speed up your restaurant’s service.

FOCUS ON ACCURATE INVENTORY AND LABOUR FORECASTING

Imagine running out of ingredients for your top-selling items or having your newest & untrained staff member serving tables during your restaurant’s peak hours. Such situations are probably the quickest way to lose your customer and sales. Accurate forecasting of food demand and staff will allow you to make informed decisions around different areas of your restaurant operation, such as food ordering, deployment, staff scheduling, preparation and deployment. The right decisions will make sure your restaurant has enough inventory and staff to fulfill customer orders efficiently, on time – resulting in overall success of your business.

Many modern POS systems in the market come with in-built forecasting features that help streamline restaurant processes, improving speed of service, by providing in-depth sales reports and analytics that determine various things, like performance of the dishes on your menu, best selling and least selling dishes and more. In case you do not have forecasting functionalities built into your POS, you can count on a third-party integration partner that uses data from your POS to create comprehensive reports to be further used to forecast future inventory and labour demand and make informed buying decisions.

TRAIN STAFF ON IN-HOUSE TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS

Your staff is perhaps the biggest factor attributing to your restaurant’s speed of service, which makes ongoing employee training an inevitable part of your staff management. Without proper training, new and inexperienced employees are more likely to make mistakes that slow down the process, cause food waste, frustrate customers and negatively impact their experience.

A robust training plan should include:

• Hands-on practice on the POS system including kitchen printer, receipt printer, barcode scanner etc.
• Training employees to use installed systems and tools using videos and podcasts.
• Role plays where employees create mock orders and perform the billing process for different scenarios.
• Holding regular meetings to consistently review each employee’s performance while making them aware of the areas where they lack and appreciating where they are doing great.

Not only do good training and cross-training allow employees to do their jobs efficiently, but also make them feel more connected to the company and less likely to leave.

ENSURE ACCURATE ORDERS AND WAIT TIMES

A study once found that 4-10% of food purchased by restaurants never makes it to guests, which leads to wastage and lost revenue.

While you cannot stop guests who have bigger eyes than their stomach, you can always focus on order accuracy to eliminate errors that cause food waste. This involves listening to the guest’s order properly, noting it down correctly and repeating the order back to the guest – which will allow the server to correct mistakes, if any, before finally taking it to the kitchen. Another step you can take to improve order accuracy is removing the middleman and allowing customers to order food themselves with digital ordering.

Digital ordering involves allowing guests to access restaurant menu and order what they want to eat through their device only. The guest is able to track their order every step of the way and make changes if they feel the need to add something or cancel something off the order.

In addition to maintaining order accuracy, it is important to ensure accurate wait times. In case there is already a long queue of guests waiting and you are aware that it will take some time to seat new guests, let them know beforehand. Similarly, if a particular dish takes a long time to prepare, inform the customer in advance. You can also consider putting up a TV in the waiting area, providing free access to restaurant’s Wi-Fi or complimentary drink or small snack while guests wait for their order.

IMPROVING SPEED OF SERVICE IS AN ONGOING PROCESS

There are, of course, more ways to improve restaurant speed of service than we have included in this blog. However, adhering to the aforementioned practices will help increase the speed with which you serve your guests, thus enhancing their experience and increasing your sales. To effectively optimise your speed of service and overall restaurant operation, you need to optimise both your front-of-house – including checking-in, seating, ordering and billing and your back-of-house operations – including staffing, managing inventory and preparing food.

TO SUM UP

A lot goes into creating a smooth and enjoyable dine-in, eat-out or take-away experience and your restaurant’s speed of service has a significant role to play in that experience. Orders may get messed up sometimes in the restaurant kitchen or maybe employees may not find their way around the new POS systems or industrial barcode scanners installed in the restaurant. No matter the situation, waiting can lead to long lines, long service times, angry customers and, ultimately lost sales.

In addition to all the suggested tips and practices, investing in the right technology and tools is crucial to your restaurant success. It is advisable to consult a POS expert to discover high-performing, best selling barcode, kitchen display systems, front-of-house & back-of-house printers and tablet POS solutions and only choose what fits your restaurant operation and needs perfectly.

Tanuj Rastogi has been working in the point of sale industry for last 15 years. Tanuj is passionate about using his industry knowledge and expertise to help retailers and restauranteurs with their Pos hardware.