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Building fine experience into fast service

How do fast casual restaurants foster customer relationships without sacrificing efficiency?

How do fast casual restaurants foster customer relationships -- and drive word-of-mouth recommendations -- without sacrificing efficiency?

October 2, 2014 by Brenda Rick Smith — Editor, Networld Media Group

A key driver for those all-important word-of-mouth recommendations that restaurants crave is customers' connection with an employee. According to feedback app Goodsnitch, customers were 57 percent more likely to recommend a restaurant if they also singled out a specific employee for praise.

How do limited-service restaurants give customers time and opportunity to make those connections without compromising speed of service? Some are adding dining room staff to elevate service and increase throughput.

Tender Greens is a relatively new fast casual salad concept, said restaurant consultant Frank Vizcarra, and it's not unusual to see anywhere from 25 to 50 people waiting in line.

"We are incredibly busy," said Tender Greens CEO Erik Oberholtzer. "This can cause us to behave too transactionally."

So Tender Greens joined the ranks of other fast casual restaurants adding staff tasked specifically with engaging customers in the dining room, pushing the restaurants more in the direction of their casual dining cousins.

Noodles & Company has been testing the addition of floating staff members to their dining rooms for the last two years, and plans to roll the program out system-wide by 2016.

Boston Market added dining room ambassadors in 2010, and also recently rolled out its new Guest Service Excellence Program which will continue to focus on customer engagement.

And now, Tender Greens is beefing up dining room staff in a bid to enhance the guest experience.

"We are adding a greeter or store brand ambassador to walk the restaurant engaging guests throughout their experience," said Oberholtzer. "This person will greet guests upon arrival at peak times, answer questions, suggest specials or chit chat with regulars. They will follow up with guests throughout the experience to see how things are going."

Tender Greens has always had bussers clearing tables, and those staff members were typically the strongest and most efficient team members, said Oberholtzer. The ambassador program is expected to add warmth and hospitality to that strength and efficiency. An average of three ambassadors roam the dining area at a time.

"We're looking for people who can also engage guests at the table and elevate the experience so it feels more like full-service," Oberholtzer said. "We believe this will elevate the guest experience and help with throughput during our busy rush hours."

Tips to build relationships

While some brands are adding more staffing to enhance the customer experience in the dining room, there are also other ways a brand can make deeper connections. Vizcarra offers the following tips:

Focus on the basics.

"Make eye contact, smile, be pleasant in your speech," said Vizcarra.

Train, train, train.

Training is a constant dialog, because of high restaurant staff turnover rates, said Vizcarra. Training should be ongoing, and managers must observe crew members to make sure they are put in positions where they can succeed.

Get to know your core audience.

"Every restaurant has a set of core customers. We call them the super heavy users," said Vizcarra. "They are your core and they drive your business. Those are the people that are recognizable by your crew."

Building healthy relationships with those core customers – understanding their preferences, soliciting their feedback – solidifies their view of a restaurant as their "third place" outside home and work, he said.

Image from Pixaby

About Brenda Rick Smith

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Brenda has more than 20 years of experience as a marketing and public relations professional. She invested most of her career telling the story of entrepreneurial non-profit organizations, particularly through social media.

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