The onset of a global pandemic has ushered the restaurant industry into a new era, and with it, redefined the traditional pre-COVID customer journey.
As a restaurateur, it is important to learn about how your customers experience their restaurant visit and what their expectations are in order to better meet their needs.
In this article, we discuss changes in the customer journey and examples of restaurant-specific solutions or tools to help you adapt.
But first, a question: what do we mean by the customer journey in the germany whatsapp number restaurant industry? The term “ customer journey ” describes the complete experience (from A to Z) that a customer has when they go to eat or order in an establishment.
The old customer journey pre-COVID period
The typical customer journey in the pre-COVID period was more or less like this: if it wasn't a special occasion, people would take the time to look at the menu and wander the streets looking for a suitable restaurant.
Taking reservations was then not widespread and above all not obligatory.
With restaurants closed and the possibility of having limited diners, the reservation process will play a very important role in welcoming and filtering the number of customers. Other tools or solutions will allow restaurateurs to establish and maintain contact with their customers.
Let’s discover three new trends that will accompany the era of new restoration:
The online business card
The new online ordering process
Contactless payment
The new customer journey in catering
The online business card
As mentioned above, the time when you could show up at a restaurant and have a seat almost guaranteed is now over. Indeed, the upcoming reopening of restaurants should be accompanied by a limitation of seats, hence the importance for restaurateurs to set up a reservation system.
Concretely, what does this mean for you as a restaurateur?
You need to make sure that your future guests can find you online and book directly with you.
To do this, you can rely on SEO and social networks to develop your online visibility:
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization : this is about optimizing the possibility of appearing in search engines, mainly Google. For example, use relevant keywords on your website, create a Google My Business listing, and add backlinks to your website via review websites and food delivery platforms.
Social media is known to everyone, but is often not used optimally. The most important question you need to answer is: who is your target group and where is it? For example, don't stay on Facebook out of habit when your target group has completely moved to Instagram or TikTok.
The goal of the above is, of course, for your potential guests to find you. The second step is for them to be able to book with you.
For example, Lightspeed POS offers several booking integrations like Resengo and Tablebooker that make it easy for people who land on your website to make reservations. They simply fill in their name, email address, and desired date and time to reserve their table. Once the reservation is recorded, you immediately receive a confirmation in your POS system.