Are You Hoping that Customers Will Return or Do You Absolutely KNOW They Will?

A family just finished eating at your restaurant, paid their bill and left.

Do you suspect that they will come back another time to spend money at your place?
Are you "hoping" they will or are you 100% Positive that they will.
Are you certain enough to actually bet money that they will return again?

If you're like most owners, you have no clue if they will return.
Sure, sometimes you hear remarks from visitors that they ate there once before or maybe a friend suggested that they try your food. What percent return? How often?

If you aren't taking steps to track these things and implementing procedures to ensure returns you are passing up on huge revenue. NOT smart.
Repeat sales make you rich not one time visitors.

Are your servers and other staff making the guests feel like Kings and Queens who are glad and feel lucky to have found you?
If not, again you're missing out on Gold($)

There are probably hundreds of ideas you could test to improve sales.
One excellent way is to simply make certain extra effort is made to capture your customer's data. Names, phones, emails, ages, where they live and other data.

Getting that data could be easy or hard, your choice.
If you have the thought in your mind that the visitors will not be willing to offer that information, then expect it to be like pulling teeth without any pain killer.

Make it fun, make it easy and make sure they get some kind of reward for supplying that precious information.

Have your place secret shopped.
Have a friend,that your staff has never met before, go through your restaurant's experience.Then have them report honestly how they liked the visit.

A better method, although it will cost money, is to hire a person that is a professional secret shopper
They will have a much better idea on what to watch for, better observation methods and will provide you with a very detailed report on their experience.

Don't you dare use any information you collect as reason to fire or even chastise any staff. The procedure is to improve you business not make you staff fearful.

Do you have a detailed written dialog that the staff are supposed to follow when they greet customers or are they just winging it?
Be smart and develop a written dialog.
Test and tweak it until it flows easily and works like crazy.
Demand that staff follow the dialog as well. NO freelancing allowed.

Are add-ons being offered each and EVERY time?
And are they offered with flair or does it sound like wait staff are reading a laundry list.

You should have dialog expressing how wonderful your food is and deliver those messages by the staff with exuberance.

Each and every wait staff can become mini "Super Sales" men and women.
If your food is not such that one can get excited about, then maybe you should consider not even having those items on the menu.
Who wants bland anything?
Offer foods that the guests must come to you to obtain.
Make them glad that they went out to eat, instead of dinning at home.
I suggest you spend some serious time looking at you menu selection.
Drop the slow movers. Add some premium choices. Add some Pizzazz.

A WEEKLY training on this should be happening, with out fail.
Please take these steps to improve.
Add some role playing in how to handle minor troubles too.
Unreasonable customers should be handled with care.
If you serve alcohol you better know how to handle drunks.
Schedule these training sessions as soon as possible.

Make it fun for the staff, make them glad they have you as a boss and they actually look forward to coming to work for you.
You don't have to be their best friend, just don't be their worst boss.

If you have a business that is struggling right now and you are possibly depressed about it,toss out that hopeless attitude and get excited, for you can rescue a sinking ship

Please come back soon to read more ideas.

This topic alone would need hundreds of posts, but I want to discuss more general ideas.