Top 3 Reasons Why First Time Customers Will Choose Your Restaurant

Updated on: 09/09/2021

I am sure you have been to a restaurant at one time or the other. What was that one thing that made you choose to dine at that particular restaurant? Was it the food and drinks? Did you like the restaurant staff? Did you choose it because of the occasion? Or did you have more than one reason?

While there are several personal reasons a person would choose to dine at a restaurant, there are a few that are universal.

For instance, on a personal note, a person may choose to dine at a kid-friendly restaurant on their kid’s birthday. The same person will not dine at the same restaurant on their own birthday. People with diet preferences will choose restaurants that serve the kind of meals that align with their preferences.

Universally, nobody likes stale food, lousy staff, or poor customer service. However, these criteria can only be measured when customers have been to your restaurants.

In this post, we are going to look at 3 reasons why people will choose your restaurant. It is important for you as a restaurant owner/manager to know these reasons as it will help you increase foot traffic and sales.

Restaurant Location

Location is nearly as important as the quality of your food to new customers. No matter how good your food tastes, if you are too far away, new customers will not come over. People will readily choose a restaurant that is a short walk away from their location. Or one located in a place that they can easily get a taxi from.

Back in the day, customers could find the closest restaurant using YellowPages. Today, all they need is a GPS-enabled smartphone. Customers only need to type in ‘restaurants near me’ or just ‘restaurants’ in to the Google search and the closest restaurants will show up.

One way to increase your chances of being found by customers closest to you is to run a location marketing campaign. This could help put you at the top three spots on the search engine results page.

Customer Reviews

What’s the one thing you would look for if you have never been to a particular restaurant to eat? Answer – customer reviews. Studies have shown that 92% of customers will look for online reviews at the start of their buyer journey. 84% of them will make a purchase decision using customer reviews as much as they would personal referrals.

Seeing how important customer reviews are, you should map out a strategy to get your customers to leave you reviews. Moreover, you need to actively publicize your positive reviews. It is one of the most effective ways to build trust in your restaurant.

Don’t forget to attend to negative reviews and work out ways to win back unhappy customers. Overall, the best way to bring in more positive reviews and avoid negative ones is to provide quality service.

Restaurant Ambience

The atmosphere, or ambience, of your restaurant matters a lot. You can have the most mouth-watering meals on the planet, if the atmosphere in your restaurant isn’t conducive, you will get nothing.

Your restaurant ambience should match the taste of the kind of customers you hope to attract. For example, if you are looking to attract young people who like to hang out, play cool music.

If you are looking to attract people on a romantic date, a place with flowers and really soft music will be great. But a quiet and serene atmosphere is the best if you are trying to attract business people.

Do you get the picture?

Besides serenity, quietness, music, and all that, you need to be sure your restaurant smells really nice. Keep all your furniture, fixtures, and fittings in top conditions. Check that every piece of cutlery, dish, or utensil is squeaky clean.

Your staff can also help your restaurant atmosphere feel better by being courteous and friendly to your diners.

Bonus point:

One sure-fire way to get people in through the door is to offer free Wi-Fi. People will walk into restaurants they never would have because of free Wi-Fi.

But why offer your Wi-Fi for free?

Because customers love to get something for nothing.

Plus, if you integrate your guest Wi-Fi with a Wi-Fi marketing and analytics software, you can collect customer data. The data will help you understand your client more. This will enable you design more effective marketing campaigns which will eventually lead to more sales.

Want to know how that works? We’d love to tell you; contact us and let’s fill you in.

Source: https://spotonwifi.com/top-3-reasons-first-time-customers-will-choose-restaurant/