8 Tips for Enhancing the Customer Experience in Your Restaurant

How Can Your Transform Each Transaction into an ‘Experience?’

Like your consumers, you’ll need to shift your focus, thinking beyond the ‘things’ in the transaction (the meat and potatoes) to zoom-in and out on what surrounds those things: The experience. Doing this will help your business stand out to customers and keep them coming back.

Zoom-In

• Think Local
  Consider ways you can infuse the local element into your restaurant atmosphere. Customers prefer to support local businesses, from local restaurants to locally-sourced food and fare. Noting locally-sourced food and items on a menu or announcement board helps customers connect with the food on their plates, and connect your restaurant with their community. Store local fruits and veggies in plain-sight. Display the works of local artists or pictures featuring regionally-inspired designs. Take advantage of a stellar surrounding landscape with the addition of an outdoor dining space.
• Be Community-Minded
  Today’s customers are yearning to connect with others and the community. Create a positive persona, supporting or hosting community events during those times when patrons are few. Or add your own events, such as morning yoga or a weekly evening wine and canvas event on your patio or lawn.

 

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• Get to Know Your Customer
  Envision the type of customer you want to attract and tailor your atmosphere to them. Customers spend their time based on how a place makes them feel.
• Create a Sense of Belonging
  Customers who feel like they belong will return more often.

Zoom-Out

• Enhance Curb Appeal
  Look at your business from a ‘drive-by’ perspective. At glance, does it look interesting, fun, or engaging, inspiring potential patrons to check it out? The exterior of your business is an advertisement for what’s housed within.
• Think Outside the Box
  Nothing offers an experience like al fresco dining. The ultimate dining trend, festive outdoor locales stimulate the senses, invigorating patrons, and inspiring food and drink indulgences as a means of escape outside the typical weekly monotony. Creating a winning outdoor dining space gives customers what they want, a connection with Mother Nature, their community, and their food. When incorporated with an adjustable aluminum pergola, customers can consistently receive unfettered access, yet still maintain the respite of sun and rain shelter at the touch of a button.
• Create an Ambiance
  Instill your restaurant with a cohesive ambiance with a unified, genuine theme. A ‘canned’ atmosphere will not work for those seeking a unique dining experience. Though things like cozy seating, a fireplace centerpiece, an edible garden, or local art display won’t be applicable in every scenario, your aim should be a space with a unified theme, be it in design, mission statement, or idea. Things that spark conversation, interest or ‘buzz’ are ideal.
• Don’t Sidestep Comfort for Cost
  Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: How long will you stay, and how often will you revisit, a restaurant with the most wobbly, hard, sticky chairs on the planet? If your sole focus is cost, your ‘experience’ will be sorely lacking. Enhance comfort and ambiance with carefully thought-out additions, such as…
   

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  • Comfortable Furnishings
    Warm, inviting, ergonomic furnishings and tasteful tableware showcase your restaurant’s reputation for quality, adding to the experience, upholding the average check, and keeping customers coming back for more.
  • A Mindful Design
    Minimize bad tables and a ruined experience with a careful look at furnishing function and layout, eliminating seating near doorways, the kitchen, and restrooms. Avoid crowding tables or creating serving and traffic snafus.
  • Comfort Control Additions
    The addition of an adjustable aluminum pergola allows your business to make the most of any weather situation, extending patron space and enhancing the experience with 170-degrees of rotational flexibility to provide shade, leak-free rain protection, or sun access and sky view. Integrated rain or wind sensors allow for easy operation on-demand, reducing staff responsibilities, and preventing customers from scrambling when inclement weather hits. Integrated fans create a space that feels up to 30-degrees cooler in the summer heat, and patio heaters and fireplaces provide warmth and ambiance on those chilly fall days. Integrated motorized screens eliminate pest concerns, helping safeguard highly-coveted outdoor dining experiences.

Make the most of all of your available space, indoor and out, creating an amazing dining experience for your clients. Schedule a complimentary design consultation, uncovering winning solutions for your restaurant’s unique brand and space. Contact Denver pergolas today.

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