If you're not a quick service restaurant, consumers will leave your eatery. Over 70% of patrons are not willing to wait 15 - 30 minutes in a restaurant for their table. You need to be fast to meet these standards, especially when 1-3 people will walk out, even if waiting is 15 minutes or less.
Speed of service is paramount to your eatery's success and will be integral to revamping your restaurant operations.
What is Speed of Service?
Speed of service is the time it takes for you to serve customers. Depending on your type of eatery, how this is measured may vary, but for most sit-down eateries, there are one or two forms of measurement:
- Time starts from the moment a person is greeted until they're served food.
- Time starts ticking the moment a person is seated until they're served food.
If you focus on improving speed of service, it will help you maximize the number of guests that you can serve and keep customers happier in the process.
7 Ways to STOP Slow Service in Your Restaurant
Speeding up your slow service is possible, but internal changes are necessary to hit this goal. A few of the steps restaurants can take to achieve this goal are:
1. Allow Customers to Order Ahead
Ordering ahead of time is beneficial for restaurants and customers. You can serve customers faster, and those who are short on time or don't want to wait for a table and be served have an option.
You can offer order ahead where:
- Food is ready or close to ready the moment the customer is seated.
- Customers can pick up the food and alleviate some of the pressure on your staff.
2. Add Table Reservation Systems
Greeting customers, especially during your busiest hours, can take a long time. It's not uncommon for a greeter to serve food and help out in other ways when you have a packed house.
One way to reduce this wait time and keep customers happier is to add a table reservation system.
You can integrate one of these systems into your restaurant using readily available tools, such as:
- Tock
- OpenTable
- Resy
Online table reservations will help you attract more customers who don't want to wait for a table and help make sure that your staff is ready to serve guests.
3. Add a QR Code Menu
Waiting for someone to come and take an order takes time. Waitstaff can offset this lost time by simply adding a QR code to the menu that offers online ordering and direct-to-table service. When guests use dine-in ordering, the order goes to the back of the house and one of your waitstaff can serve the food.
If you wish, you can even have the QR code at each table so that guests can view the menu without waiting to be given one. However, this works best in restaurants with self-seating. For example, small local diners that offer self-seating often have QR codes so that patrons can order the moment they sit down if they don't want to wait for a waiter or waitress to give them a menu.
4. Don't Leave Guests Waiting
First impressions are everything. When guests arrive, make sure they're greeted right away. Set a standard for your greeting time: 30 seconds, one minute - whatever will work best for your customers.
Make sure that your team understands the importance of offering a warm and prompt greeting. This one simple thing will set the tone for the rest of the evening, so it's important to get it right.
5. Invest in Your Equipment
Even with ample, experienced staff, your speed of service will suffer if you don't have the right equipment.
If your kitchen staff is equipped with the right tools for the job, they can work more efficiently without compromising on quality.
Start by asking your staff for recommendations on what can be done to make their jobs easier. How can you better organize your kitchen? What pieces of equipment would help them work more efficiently?
Something as simple as rearranging your prep line may do wonders for improving speed and accuracy.
While you're focused on your kitchen, take a moment to assess your equipment. Are any repairs needed? What maintenance should be done to keep your equipment running optimally?
Proper maintenance and swift repairs can help keep your kitchen running smoothly and prevent breakdowns that will slow your restaurant service.
6. Train Your Staff
When it comes to service speed and efficiency, restaurant operations management can only take you so far. Your staff will play a critical role in ensuring you meet your goals for speed of service.
Invest in employee training and cross-training to build an agile staff that can handle different tasks or roles when needed.
Key areas to focus your training include:
- Customer service
- Food safety
- Managing the POS system
Along with traditional training, you can use role-playing and scenario training to ensure your staff is prepared to handle any situation.
7. Leverage Reporting Tools to Forecast Orders
Reporting and analytics tools can help you forecast orders and better manage the daily operations of a restaurant.
Having a clear picture of important metrics, like table occupancy, how many customers you serve each day and your most popular dishes, can help you better prepare for each day by ensuring you have enough staff and inventory.
But if you want to take it a step further and get a better understanding of your speed of service, head straight to the source: your customers.
Start by reading your reviews. If customers are unhappy with your service speed, they will likely voice their opinion in their online reviews.
You can also:
- Train your staff to politely ask guests for feedback. What could be improved regarding your service? How could their experience have been better?
- Check in with your team. If there's a problem with the speed of your service, there's a good chance that your customers will complain directly to the waitstaff. But are those complaints getting to you? Establish an open line of communication and let your staff know that they can share customer complaints without fear of repercussions.
Reports and analytics tools, along with live feedback, can help you better understand your true speed of service and how you can improve.
Every restaurant owner should aim to optimize their speed of service to meet customer expectations and deliver a positive dining experience. Offering table reservations and order-ahead options is one great way to streamline your service, but it's just as important to make sure you have enough staff to serve customers and the right equipment to prepare orders quickly.