Customer Service / Customer Experience

Features, News & Blogs

Food fight: Combat rising costs with smarter hourly hiring
	The restaurant industry is expected to grow this year, but realizing big profits will be a tall order in the face of rising food and labor costs. State minimum wage increases – ranging from 28 to 34 cents - could have a large impact on quick …
The Apps of Foodservice
	From calculating tips to booking a reservation, there's an app for nearly everything in today's foodservice industry. Even the moderately tech-savvy consumers are using popular apps like Urbanspoon and Foursquare to find restaurants, make …
What else can I get you?
	If you're like most operators, you'll be making some changes to your menu in the coming months. According to the Wall Street Journal, Applebee's has revamped about 80 percent of its menu over the past two years, while more than half of T.G.I. Friday …
A lesson in loyalty
	Recession or not, the restaurant industry is here and growing. Consumers spend a huge percentage of their food budgets on eating out at restaurants, and restaurant sales are expected to top $600 billion this year. And yet according to the National …
Revitalize ‘good service’: A foodservice must
	Foodservice has always been about delivering the best customer experience by providing the best food, most convenience and best service. However, during the economic recession, people tightened their belts, counted their pennies and scrutinized …
3 trends hitting foodservice
	The PeopleMatter Institute (PMI) put together the 'Top 11 of 2011,' a compilation of the hottest trends from the past year that the service industry should continue focusing on in 2012. From this list I predict the following to be the most prominent …
Adaptation – 3 Categories Evolve
	Below is Part II of "Adaptation." Click here to read Part I. The new double cage arrangement changed the dynamic between Lilly and Teddy but in an unexpected way. Once the space was expanded, Lilly became her own piggy (cavy for the sticklers) and …
Are we there yet?
	Happy days are here again. I know. It doesn't feel that way to me either. Granted, things don't seem as dire as they did in 2008, -09 and -10. But it doesn't seem to me — or anyone I know, for that matter — that our national economic …
Give customers what they want before the first order
	Knowing how your customer thinks is a vital part of any strategic business plan. This means understanding not only what drives decisions in the board room, but having practical, in-depth knowledge of what happens at the counter of each restaurant …
Dining decisions are difficult
	There are a lot of theories about how people make the decision to buy a meal. To those of us who have spent considerable portions of our lives trying to decipher the process, it's still somewhat mind-boggling. Do people think first about what they …