How to reinvent the customer experience of tomorrow in restaurants?

Restaurant owners, we can't wait! Consumers can't wait to see you in the dining room and share a moment of conviviality with friends or family in your restaurants. While waiting for the reopening, our experts offer you some advice on how to imagine the customer experience of tomorrow. 

Work on your customer experience 

Your restaurant is a real place to live, a place where customers come together to share a moment of conviviality and enjoyment. What they expect from a restaurant experience varies greatly depending on the type of restaurant, but there are a few basic elements that separate the incredible customer experiences from the mediocre ones, such as 

• A warm welcome
• Excellent food
• A sophisticated and Instagrammable atmosphere and decor
• Efficient customer service.

Health crisis or not, customers will remain uncompromising about the customer experience. It is therefore essential to work on these points if you want to develop your business, generate more positive comments and explode on social networks. In short, become a place where customers flock to.

Our experts' advice for a good customer experience: 
Choose your waiters carefully as they represent the image of your restaurant and are the first people your customers talk to
Make your teams responsible for the quality and preparation of your dishes 
Work on your decoration and your dishes to attract customers on social networks 
Install efficient tools to manage your restaurant (cash register system, online reservation and payment platform...) 

Want to know more about social networks? Check out our article: Instagram: A must-have communication tool for restaurants

Digitalising your restaurant 

The health crisis has considerably accelerated the use of digital technology, so it is essential to offer consumers a fluid and engaging online experience, without abandoning the experience at the point of sale. The objective is to move as much as possible towards a hybrid offer between physical and digital commerce. 

Discover with our experts the current trends to bring digital into your establishment and reinvent the restaurant customer experience: 

Robotise your restaurant 

What if a robot prepared the pizzas for you to limit human contact with the products delivered to consumers? This is the challenge facing many FoodTech players in order to meet customer expectations regarding product hygiene and safety.

More suited to dark kitchens and high-flow areas, these robots will reduce the repetitive tasks of kitchen staff and guarantee the safety of staff and consumers. This trend, which has developed mainly in the United States, could start to gain momentum in France. Delivery platforms are also considering developing delivery robot solutions to respond to the rise of a new contactless commerce, such as Uber Eats.

Offering a sensory and taste experience 

In a restaurant, all our senses are on alert: the smell of the kitchen, the background music, the way the dishes are set up... All these elements contribute to the restaurant experience.  But how do you bring that same experience into your home? 

A FoodTech professional has come up with an original idea to stimulate the senses of his customers directly at home, for delivery and click & collect orders. The experience starts with sound: the music starts by scanning the QR code on each delivery bag. It leads to the restaurant's Spotify account where the chef's playlist sets the mood for the flavours you are about to enjoy. Each dish is also accompanied by a wipe that releases a new fragrance, an olfactory reference to the dish.

Investing in dark kitchens 

Over the past ten years, home delivery has become increasingly popular, both in fast food and traditional restaurants. The closure of restaurants has also intensified the phenomenon of dark kitchens, "ghost" establishments with only a kitchen and no room to welcome customers.

This new business model is becoming more and more attractive because the administrative constraints and operating costs are lower than in a traditional establishment: 

• No need for premises located in the city centre
• A reduced surface area
• No wait staff.

Be careful, however, because in order to succeed in standing out, you must have a strict organisation: 

• Buy high-performance equipment to produce in quantity
• Hire efficient staff capable of performing repetitive tasks
• Market your offer
• Make the costs of delivery platforms profitable.