As you go about starting a restaurant business, you’ll need as much information as you can get. For many, that makes coming up with a restaurant business plan or a restaurant marketing plan quite the challenge. Among the best ways to learn is to get your customers to answer surveys. Before you start doing this, you must first consider what information you are looking for and what questions to ask. Here are some considerations that you may want to take into account.
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire
For you to find out how well you are connecting with your customers, a customer satisfaction survey is just what you need. Those who are looking to find out what expectations the customers have in mind, you don’t have to look far. For that purpose, you’ll need a customer expectations survey. As different as those two are, they also have striking similarities when it comes to what questions are being asked.
Before Opening A Restaurant
Before your restaurant officially opens, you need to know essential things like who your target market is, what they want, which location serves you best, and more. One way to find out more about those would be to set up a restaurant survey template. This can even be a part of your restaurant opening checklist, should you choose to include it. FOOD
Survey Questionnaire
For a food survey questionnaire, the intention would be to see just how great and consistent the quality of your products are. It also asks questions regarding the pricing; if what is being served is good value for customers’ money or if the prices are competitive enough. This should provide you with an idea of how and where you can aim for improvements.
Restaurant Service Questions
These types of questions are all part of a customer service survey. You can also encounter them on restaurant evaluation surveys. This is where you ask your customers to rate how well they have been served. Questions here will include how fast the service was, whether it was adequate enough for the customers, and so much more. Just like the food survey questionnaire, from this you can determine the areas on which you can make improvements on.
Market Research Questionnaire
Coming up with a marketing plan can be tough, especially with the different things that you need to take into consideration. As you work on your market research questionnaire, there’s a good chance you’ll have to work on multiple surveys as well. This includes a competitor pricing survey and a competitor pay rate survey. Considering how extensive the research is likely to be, this should hardly come as a surprise.
Menu Survey
When preparing a profitable menu, you must first gauge the expectations of your customers. This can be done through a customer expectations survey. If you are looking to find out what they think of your menu after it has been prepared, this should also give you a much better idea of what customers like about it and what they don’t.
Employee Satisfaction Survey
If your employees are happy and satisfied, they’re more likely to be productive and engaged. Issuing an employee survey regularly is a wise move because then you’d be kept updated on how your employees feel about their jobs. When asking them questions, do so in a direct manner. Among the questions to ask should involve their enjoyment of your organisation’s culture; whether or not they find their job meaningful; if adequate growth and development is provided; and whether or not they feel they are valued enough.
Guest Survey
Restaurants are still part of the hospitality industry, so it makes sense to gauge just how well the customers think of their stay in one. Try to ask questions about the ambience. Perhaps they found certain things about your establishment to be incredibly to their liking. Then again, maybe it’s the other way around. To learn more about these things, you’d do well to pattern your surveys after a restaurant guest survey template.
Other Questions
Sometimes, you will encounter questions or concerns that may fit into several categories or alternatively, no particular category. With that said, you must know that certain questions are a must; to the point where it can be crucial to the success of your restaurant. Be sure to learn what the questions are. Through the answers you get from them, you’ll get a much greater insight into how your operations are going and what will — or won’t — fit into your future marketing and branding strategies.
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How Often Do You Dine With Us?
This specific question determines the frequency of your customers’ patronage. Learn as much as you can about their dining habits and you’ll be sure to learn about a myriad of different things. One would be how much they enjoy your products and services. Another would be how much loyalty you have garnered amongst your customers. Through those two, you can potentially move on to other tactics, such as loyalty promotions or discounts.
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How Adequate Was the Speed of Service?
Keep yourself updated with the opinions of your customers by including questions like this in your surveys. The speed of service experienced is not a major thing in itself, but can be crucial to the happiness and satisfaction of patrons. Determine how their overall experience has been so far and see if there’s anything to improve or correct.
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What is Your Preferred Restaurant Style?
By asking this question in one of your surveys, you are looking for one of the most basic information regarding your target market. When you learn their basic dining preferences, you can sort out groups that you can ideally cater to and those that you can’t or shouldn’t.
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How Do You Prefer Food to Be Served?
This is a question that involves one of the more specific preferences of your customers. Be sure to ask and learn this before you open up your restaurant. It will save you the trouble of having to come up with ideas without feedback and you can lessen the trial and error period.
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Would you Recommend the Restaurant to Friends & Family?
This is a question that pertains to the satisfaction of your customer. As you know, word of mouth is an incredibly effective way of advertising. Please your patrons enough and they might just advertise your restaurant for you to their friends and family. By asking this question, you’re making sure of that possibility.
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What Type of Cuisine Would You Prefer?
This is a question that is normally asked before the restaurant is opened. Asking your target customers this question will give you an insight into their culinary tastes and preferences. Through this, you can find out if they really are the type of people you ought to be catering to or if you should look elsewhere.
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Would You Prefer to Spend More Money, Simply Because of the Ambience?
The ambience of your establishment can have a profound effect on your customers. Some may even consider this the focal point of the restaurant. That reason alone can lead to customers spending more, but the trick is to know who these are or how much of your customers are really going to do it. Add this question to one of your surveys and you should have a good idea of who these customers are.
When it comes to restaurant branding & marketing strategies, surveys are undoubtedly useful. Pay attention to the restaurant templates and documents that you’ll be needing when setting up your establishment. There are always ways to improve and areas that could use more of your attention than some. By paying close attention and asking the right questions, you’ll be in a better position to drastically raise your restaurant’s level.