By Adrian Johansen, Contributor
Today's restaurant owners face hiring challenges due in part to the "Great Resignation." These challenges make it difficult for restaurants to provide guests with the quality service they expect. At the same time, owners are coping with item shortages. If a restaurant cannot maintain sufficient stock, it will struggle to fulfill guests' orders and earn revenue.
Sadly, operators should expect labor and item shortages to plague their business for the foreseeable future. No restaurant is not immune to labor and item shortages. However, there are several things you can do to market your restaurant amid these issues.
1. Use Social Media to Promote Your Restaurant
Set up and maintain social media pages. Then, you can use these pages to serve your customers by sharing details about your restaurant's hours, menu items, safety protocols, and more. This ensures your social media pages let you connect directly to customers and keep them up to date about your restaurant. Additionally, they can help you drive customer engagement and bolster your customer service.
This is all Online Marketing 101 stuff, but it’s easy to forget about it or let it fall by the wayside when you’re stressing over stock and staff scheduling. You still need to tend to your restaurant’s marketing efforts, too.
Showcase your restaurant's food and talent via social media. Meanwhile, share social media posts about your upcoming restaurant events and activities – such as what sports games your bar will have on their TVs. You can provide details about restaurant promotions, discounts, and coupons on social media as well.
Also, utilize high-quality images on your social media pages. Capture images of your restaurant on your smartphone or tablet and share them with your social media followers. Take advantage of social media tools to crop and enhance your social media images.
Furthermore, track the results of your social media efforts. Monitor likes, comments, and other metrics across your social media posts. From here, you can determine what social media posts hit the mark with your target audience. And you can tweak your social media marketing efforts accordingly.
2. Leverage Technology to Improve the Guest Experience
Integrate technology into your restaurant's operations like never before. For instance, you can encourage guests to make reservations via your restaurant's website or mobile app. Additionally, you can let guests use a QR code to place their orders when they arrive at your restaurant. You can even allow guests to use their smartphones to pay their restaurant bills.
Before you add technology, consider all of the options at your disposal. Think about what issues frequently plague your guests and how technology can help you resolve them. Next, you can pick up technology that meets your guests' expectations.
Of course, if you leverage technology, make a plan to implement it. Otherwise, if implementation errors occur, you risk hurting your brand reputation.
3. Keep Guests Engaged, Even If They Face Long Wait Times
Make the guest experience one visitors won't soon forget. This requires careful planning and attention to detail.
Typically, it helps to train your staff on how to support guests. Staff members should treat every guest with care. They should ensure guests' requests are fulfilled without delay. If any problems arise, staff members should be ready to provide customer service with a smile. This is also much easier to do if you’ve implemented tableside technology that lets your guests order and pay at their own whim. It frees up your staff to help and support and not just shuttle between tables and the kitchen.
Along with training your staff, you can take precautions to keep your guests engaged, even if they are forced to deal with long wait times. For instance, you can provide guests with beepers to alert them when their table is ready. This ensures guests won't have to sit and wait at your restaurant while you prepare their table. Having an engaging digital signage program also can be a big help in keeping guests entertained.
If possible, host events and activities at your restaurant. Scheduling weekly events like karaoke, or trivia night give people reasons to visit your restaurant. Over time, they can help you drive guest engagement.
4. Request Guest Feedback and Learn from It
Conduct guest surveys and questionnaires. By doing so, you can get guest feedback and use it to improve your restaurant.
Encourage guests to complete surveys and questionnaires any time they visit your restaurant. Oftentimes, it helps to keep a survey or questionnaire short. Include three to five questions regarding the guest experience in the assessment. You can also offer a coupon or other perks to incentivize guests to provide honest feedback.
Take guest feedback seriously. Remember, there is always room for improvement. Find out how guests feel about your restaurant and all it has to offer. You can then use guest feedback to enhance your restaurant.
Get the Best Results Out of Your Restaurant Marketing
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has wreaked havoc on restaurants. As a restaurant owner, you're still recovering from the pandemic. At this time, you may be facing labor and item shortages that hamper your restaurant's growth.
There is no telling when the pandemic will end or how it will continue to impact restaurants. Regardless, the pandemic does not excuse poor marketing. As such, you must continue to promote your restaurant — or risk shutting down.
Take advantage of the aforementioned tips to bolster your restaurant marketing. And as a result, your restaurant will be well-equipped to keep your guests happy long into the future.
