Developing a Survey for Your Restaurant

Every restaurant does it. The person orders their meal, it's served, and the waiter comes back about 10 minutes later and asks "is everything okay?" to which the individual almost always replies "yes, everything is great." Then the patron never comes back. People are not going to give honest answers at restaurants – not just because they are concerned the cooks will spit in their food, but also because when confronted by someone who could be personally offended by a negative response, they are likely to give a less than real answer.

But the restaurant learns nothing from this. Indeed, it's arguable that this may actually be harming the restaurant's ability to succeed. That is why it may be more desirable to find a way to get real data from these individuals.

You need to allow patrons a way to fill out a survey without it being associated to them. There are many ways to do this. You can offer them a survey link on their receipt that will provide them with a free dessert, or if your business is not that formal, maybe offer them a computer at your restaurant and if they fill out the survey they get the free dessert or a coupon to come back, etc.

You can also request their email address for a survey and explain what they will get if they fill it out. This provides you with a bit of marketing as well, because it increases the likelihood they come back.

But beyond that, it will provide you with more accurate data about your business. You have them fill out an online survey about their meal (perhaps giving them a digital menu where they can select what they ate), then have them fill out data that tells you how the food was. You can also survey them on service, timeliness, price, etc.

Here are the benefits of conducting satisfaction surveys for restaurants .

It's hard for restaurants to survive these days. Getting real data about your restaurant can be a huge help, and one that will give you an opportunity to make your business even better. Asking patrons how their meals were is an outdated method, and one that rarely provides real results. Conducting a restaurant satisfaction survey has a lot more potential to give you interesting and usable information to improve your business.