20 Ways to Upset and Lose Customers

Check around you - the look, feel, smells and sounds that customers notice when they spend time at your bar, café or restaurant.

- By Ken Burgin

Familiarity makes it easy to overlook a host of unpleasant, icky* things we make them experience.

Ask someone you trust to do a brutally honest review of your venue, from front door to rear entrance. Here are a few of the nasties they may find:

• Toilets - everything about them can be pleasant...or awful. Wet and dirty seats, bad smells, unclean surfaces, no paper - how are they on a busy night?
• Staff aprons - worn and dirty, or fresh. Do they look like they've done a year of hard service?
• Stale smells - how fresh is your function room if it's been closed for a while? Or the restaurant when you open in the morning?
• Staff collecting dirty glasses with their fingers - you know what happens. Why don't they use trays properly? Much more.

Minding Your Nines and Zeros

It's a trick that we've all seen dozens of times. "It's a bargain for only $19.95!" "The beef Burgundy is $20." One pitch indicates value and the other indicates quality - and the number might be the biggest indicator of all.

Imagine a restaurant menu. If you see prices like $7.99 and $9.99, you get the impression that the restaurant is actually a good value, a place where you won't be ripped off on the bill. If you see prices like $10 and $12, you get the impression that the restaurant is putting out a value product and that you'll be getting something of quality.

When a customer comes in the door of your business, are they expecting quality or are they expecting value? It's easy for a business owner to say "Both" and not really deal with the question, but knowing the answer to that question can make all the difference.

Instead, think of it this way: do you want to be known for providing good quality for the price, or would you prefer to be known as providing the best quality service in town, bar none?

If you want to present yourself as providing "bang for the buck" value, list your prices as being $29.99 or $39.99 or $9.99. If you want to present yourself as having high quality, list your prices as being $30 or $40 or $10. More.

Take Currency Symbols Off The Menu, Restaurant Patrons Spend More

Have you ever noticed that the menus in nice restaurants leave the currency signs off prices, or spell them out in words rather than Arabic numerals? The intended effect is pretty much what you would assume - to remove the association between prices on the menu and actual money. Now, there's actual academic research showing that half of this theory is true. Link

Social Media for Restaurants

Restaurant Marketing - Watch more Funny Videos

How to Use Twitter for Restaurant, Function & Bar Marketing

Modern marketing is about conversations, not just one-way broadcasting.

Twitter is a great tool for online or 'social media' marketing: it's free, and only needs a small time commitment. It's also a good way to 'find your voice' and practice writing short sales messages. If you have time to write one promotional text message each week, you can manage Twitter!

More than ten million people are using Twitter - if you've got a demographic that's young, educated and online, you have many of them who will be interested in your 'tweets'.

Full article.

Hold the Phone

Cornell Study Shows Value of Telephone and Online Reservations

Restaurant Industry Research Stresses Importance of Offering Both Methods, to Cater to Customer Needs for Convenience and Personal Touch.

Restaurant customers like the convenience of the internet, but they appreciate the personal touch of telephone reservations, according to a new restaurant industry study from Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research.

More.

Fun Dining

Bringing Fun Back to the Dining Experience. Link.