When you think about customer service, what do you hear?

Running a restaurant is demanding.

And gaining and maintaining regular guests is hard.

Aside from great food, one of the ways you capture those guests is through exceptional customer service.

But when you think about your customer service do you think about sound?

More specifically the sound of noise.

I've been to a lot of restaurants throughout my life so far, from the hole in the wall fifteen blocks east of here to the type of restaurant where they don't feel it necessary to put prices on the menu's (if you have to ask you can't... well you know.)

In all of those restaurants noise can be a positive or negative factor. It can add to the ambiance, like water babbling in a fountain, or it can detract from the ambiance, like a dentist's drill on one of your molars.

That kind of noise can drive a customer off.

In and article from last year in The Washington Post from Tom Sietsema, No Appetite for Noise, the tag line is:

The No. 1 complaint of restaurant-goers in the Washington area isn't the service, or even the dinner. It's the din

The Number One Complaint.

That's pretty bad.

In a more recent article by Ray Kelly in Masslive.com, Dealing with noisy restaurants, he writes:

Apart from the issue of too-loud music, excessive restaurant clatter can result from poor design choices.

Sound that becomes noise, that irritating stuff that grates on us, can seem to reflect an unconscious air of disdain really. That may not be what you think and certainly probably is not what you want to come across to your guests. But in the mind of the guest it says,"They really don't care a whole lot about my experience here."

This YouTube video is a perfect example where noise is very specifically tied to poor customer service.



So take an opportunity to listen in your restaurant. What noises do you hear? When the place is full during a dinner rush, can you hold a conversation without having to use a voice you would use to call across a ball field?

If the din is too great find a way to change that because you will be serving the customer by making them comfortable and they will in turn want to come back again.

And remember, with SellMoreMeals.com you can connect with those guests outside those four walls and let them know how much you appreciate them.