The 10 Most Important Questions to Ask in a Restaurant Survey

Customer feedback is vital in the restaurant trade. It provides restaurateurs with insight on how they can improve their food, services and overall customer experience. Customer surveys can be used by restaurant owners to effectively gauge how their eatery is perceived by their patrons.

Encourage customers to fill out online and Customer surveys, so this essential marketing asset can be collected with convenience and efficiency. The surveys will provide your restaurant with the feedback you need to make improvements and attract more patrons.

Restaurant Survey Questions

If you are compiling a customer feedback survey, take a look at the following 10 most important questions to ask.

How Often Do You Dine with Us?

Asking this question will give you an idea of what type of customer is filling out this survey — a first-time customer, infrequent diner or frequent client.

Does the Restaurant Have a Sufficient Selection of Healthy Choices?

With a huge emphasis being placed on healthy eating, it is important restaurants offer options to satisfy this growing demand. Consequently, it is important in order to remain competitive your restaurant offers healthy options.

Gauging from your customers whether your restaurant offers a diverse enough range of healthy dishes will allow you to make an informed decision on any modifications required to the restaurant’s healthy eating menu.

What Did You Like Best About Our Food and Services?

Asking customers to fill in what they like best about your food and services will allow you to get a clear understanding of what components of the restaurant experience are working the best.

What Did You Not Like About Our Food and Services?

By the same token, asking your customers what they did not like about your food and services will inform you directly about what is not working in your restaurant and which improvements need to be made.

How Quick or Adequate Was the Speed of Service?

Nobody wants to wait an unreasonably long time for their food in a restaurant, particularly if it’s at a fast food restaurant. In fact, speed of service makes a huge impact on customer retention rates.

Getting an idea of customer sentiments on speed of service will give you an understanding of whether or not improvements need to be made to the speed your customers receive their food.

Was the Selection of Beverages Sufficient?

Beverages are becoming an increasingly important part of a restaurant’s revenue. It is vital your restaurant has a diverse range of drinks on offer to satisfy customer demand.

Gauging your customers’ thoughts on the beverages on offer in your restaurant will allow you to make a more informed decision on what new drinks to introduce to your establishment.

How Would You Rate Our Staff’s Ability to Meet Your Needs?

A well-trained team in your restaurant will result in higher customer satisfaction and ultimately help increase profits. Putting the question to your customers of whether staff sufficiently met their requirements will provide you with knowledge on how to modify and improve staff training.

Did the Restaurant Have a Family-Friendly Environment?

Keeping children satisfied is a huge part of the eating out family experience. If your restaurant caters to families, ask customers whether they think you operate a family-friendly environment.

Depending on the results of this question you will know whether you need to introduce more family-friendly features. Such features may include putting crayons and coloring books or electric gaming devices in the restaurant to keep youngsters entertained.

How Would You Rate the Cleanliness of the Restaurant?

Cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation is one of the most important components of running a restaurant business. You may think your restaurant is clean but do your customers agree? Asking patrons their thoughts on the cleanliness of your eatery will let you know if improvements are required.

Would You Recommend Our Restaurant to Family or Friends?

This question is vital, because knowing whether your customers would recommend your eatery to others, will give you an understanding of the overall appeal and popularity of your restaurant. If this question garners a negative response, you will be able to work on how to improve the restaurant so it is recommended by customers.

Encouraging customers to fill in surveys about their experience at your restaurant is a vital marketing tactic to ultimately help improve the quality, appeal and profits of your eating establishment.

Survey Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "The 10 Most Important Questions to Ask in a Restaurant Survey" was first published on Small Business Trends