Six great ways to engage guests inside a restaurant

1: Show Appreciation

When guests enter inside the restaurant, convey to them how much they are appreciated for choosing to dine in. Train the hosts and hostesses impeccably as they are usually the ones who meet with guests. The support staff should be friendly, attentive and pay close heed to the demands of guests.

2: Recognize Guest Expectations

Guests generally make the decision to dine at the restaurant on the basis of past experience, recommendations, social media interactions, reviews etc. Once the staff understands what guests are expecting from the restaurant, it's their job to match and surpass those expectations.

3: Table Tents

Keeping table tents on all the tables is a great way to market menu items and it is also a good place to promote new things to guests at the time of their presence in the restaurant. Things like information about upcoming events, special deals, and your awesome loyalty program to encourage return visits, etc. can be showcased in it.

4: Provide Free Wifi but Make The Most Use of it

When the restaurant allows guests access to wifi, one should consider getting guests’ contact details and email id via login pop-ups or a tiny survey. If there is a POS system with a built-in CRM, combining it with customer database will provide access to that data later on.

5: Encourage Guests to Join Loyalty Program

The best time to ask guests to connect with restaurant’s loyalty program is when they are actually inside the restaurant. When the meal ends, after being amused by the whole experience, encourage guests to join the loyalty program, when they are still enveloped in the whole atmosphere.

6: Offer Guests Something on Their Next Visit

Before the guests leave, give them an incentive to come back. Offer them some discount coupon for next time, or if one wants to take it to next level, the offer can be personalised on the basis of their current dining insights.