Wow Your Guests With Experience, Experience, Experience. Blog by Oystein Mojord from Chef & Yöung

This month Oystein Mojord shares his top 5 tips on how you can create a buzz around your restaurant/business before the customer even steps foot through the door.

• How can loyalty schemes can increase your restaurant profits?
• How are smartphones creating opportunities for the hospitality industry?

Conrad Hilton (founder of Hilton hotels) had a famous saying: “Location, Location, Location”, which translated to the importance of a businesses location to success. Now, with growing competition within the hospitality and restaurant industry, this may be updated to “Experience, Experience, Experience”.

With the development of technology, customers and guests have been put in the driver’s seat more than ever before, having a multitude of choices of where to dine or stay with lessened loyalty to any one brand. To properly differentiate your business, the experience you provide is now the key and experience starts earlier than most think.

The customer journey starts long before the customer reaches the restaurant or hotel. The customer journey starts with the very first interaction that someone has with your brand, this is often online in what Google calls “micro moments” (learn more here). Digital technologies push the beginning of the customer journey ever earlier with the experience starting at your fingertips via your mobile. It is also important that the focus is on maximising the positive guest experience before and during as well as after their stay/dining.

So, in order to ensure you have the right tools to create unique experiences and exceed guest’s expectations we have created a top 5 list of essentials to consider.

Offer digital solutions for guests to optimise their own stay/dining

Offer digital solutions for guests to optimise their own stay/diningCollaborate with digital platforms such as Oaky, who gives your guests the freedom to design their stay. For pre-arrival, guests can add-on the deals and services that matter most. During the stay the guests can provide real time feedback creating a chance for the restaurant/hotel to quickly react and exceed the guests expectations. http://www.oakyapp.com/

Increase your guest engagement 

Delivering great product, service and environment is fundamental in delivering meaningful experiences but it is also crucial to connect with your guests on a more emotional level. Check out how you do it here: https://chefandyoung.com/loaltyschemes/

Local is being reinvented

With companies such as Airbnb investing heavily into offering trips and experiences during your stay at different locations means there is something here. People want to be inspired and your local community probably has plenty of unique attractions you can highlight to guests. Give them another reason to come and collaborate with local people and companies to create the experiences. 

Ask for feedback – and be genuine

People want to engage with authentic businesses who are interested in their experiences but also improving their services. Ask your guests for feedback, directly on site, or via platforms such as TripAdvisor. Make sure to manage your TripAdvisor page and respond to reviews in a genuine way – both positive and critical ones. 
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Owners 

Enable social interaction with your company

Engage with your customers during the customer journey, from the first moment they find your online pages to after they dine/stay with you. Engage actively on social media on a few choice platforms. Not all platforms will be aligned with your business, your customers, and your style, so select a few and engage with the community. Check out this helpful article for how to select what channels will work for you: 
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/2016-10-26-how-to-choose-the-best-social-media-channels-for-your-business 

Oystein Mojord

Chef & Yöung is a Scandinavian brand working to grow the talent and passion of yöung chefs and foodies, promoting cooking as a lifestyle. Everything started when the Norwegian chef, Oystein, travelled around the world and noticed that there was a high demand for quality chefs in the kitchens; meanwhile his colleagues were constantly switching jobs. He decided something had to be done and Chef & Yöung was born to bring in a new attitude among yöung chefs and promote cooking as a lifestyle. Oystein co-owns Chef & Yöung with Mattias Nordlander who focuses on the sales, marketing and finance side of the business.

Twitter: @chefandyoung