7 ideas to help your restaurant evolve in a changing world

When the month of June dawns, the economy will inevitably be down because in summer the impact of tourism on growth is decisive.

The subject of “health protection” has been deliberately left out of this article.. You will find a procession of communicators taking up the subject and at the end of the day, I am not sure that you need to add more to an already hypertrophied communication and that your customers need to be over-reassured. Play the game and do the job but don’t add to it.

What the crisis has accelerated

We have developed it extensively in our article “ Customer satisfaction: Codes to review ”, we will aspire to relationships that are less stilted, more personal, natural, authentic, friendly, sincere. The individual must be at the center of all concerns. We are going to enter a new cycle where the quest for identity will be a major social vector.

The recent Qualimétrie / Vertone study shows that in 2019, one in five French people stopped going to a restaurant in the last six months and that this is 51% due to the quality of the products, 28% for the quality service and 21% for welcoming teams. It is therefore the human element that predominantly prevails here and this trend will be even more marked in the “world after”.

On the technology side, we are seeing an ever-increasing digitalization of the economy. Click and Collect and online reservations continue to grow in the catering industry.

On the product side, I will not surprise anyone by saying that the locality, the identity, the name, the traceability of the product, are values ​​which have continued to rise in recent years. How many chefs brandish Sesame as “a real local seasonal product”? But it is also a greater attention paid to well-being, healthy living, and body care. During the lockdowns, we saw farmers selling their production directly to households. Growers’ cooperative stores are developing here and there in increasing numbers. We are talking more and more about safeguarding farmers’ income… All these signs show us that a return to more authenticity, proximity and quality is expected in the catering offer even if this results in slightly higher prices at the expense of reduced attendance.

What restaurateurs could review

As the customer will demand attention, so  your restaurant will the chef, chef de partie, dishwasher, maître d’, waiter. You will be able to rely on unparalleled energy and motivation to achieve a leap in skill that would normally be unattainable. This is the time to bring them together, welcome them, listen to them, consider them and say, “This is what we are going to do…”

But also, the pleasure of working together will be your objective because it will inevitably result in better service for the customer, a much richer relationship, a taste for sharing and happiness that comes back. You will build loyalty. You show in range.

Give autonomy

There is no job where we don’t want to be trusted or given responsibility. The diver will be proud to see beautiful tables thanks to platter and dishes that are as clean as they are well preserved. As in a sports team, if the pre-match coaching and debriefing are done well, everyone will know what they will have to do and “it will work out well for the client”.

Consider your customer

How many times have we experienced this as a customer? The carafe of water that doesn’t arrive, the wave of the hand to the waiter who saw you but pretends otherwise, the waiter who keeps cutting off conversations without apologizing when he intervenes or wants you to clear more enough space to serve your table, the bill that doesn’t arrive… Sit in the room and observe your team. Take ten minutes after the service. Do like the director: Give your corrections kindly after the show and help everyone to give more delicacy and attention to the client.

Talk about your producers

58% of French people are sensitive to restaurants that are transparent in their cuisine. Unless you get most of your supplies from Metro and you still want to do so, now is the time to talk about your small local producers, your short circuits. It can be a collection of beautiful photos hanging on the walls, a double page following the menus, a page on your website, articles in your newsletters…be creative with your team to highlight this in the best way for it. customer.

Give meaning to your music

? Don’t you think that this burger is a turn-off for some customers? A menu is not a collection of dishes requested by your customers and doing what customers ask of you leads to doing the same thing as everyone else. If we had only always done what they asked for, the smartphone would never have seen the light of day.