Top 5 Trends Enhancing Customer Experience In Restaurants And Quick Service.

Customer Experience in restaurant industry?s joy derives from markets full of people, most of whom would plan to eat out while going to markets or even for a simple outing. But the pandemic significantly altered the restaurant business in the last two years. For the sake of survival, governments in most countries implemented obligatory lockdowns to keep people indoors. This resulted in restaurants closing the offline mode and switching to the online mode.

This opened up many opportunities with digital marketing and showcasing your restaurant on the internet. This expedited numerous developments that were already taking place in the food and beverage sector in several ways. But with the endemic approaching, the dark clouds of closed markets are behind us and many countries have opened up since the last year. Customers are coming out to the offline market and the inbound traffic has made the sector very happy which help to increase customer experience.

Since then, there have been many developments, such as QR codes for menus, digital payments, and many more. Many customers have become habitual in ordering from home, favouring delivery service or even takeaways. With technology as their tool, quick service and fast casual restaurants can make their business successful and increase customer Experience. 

Customer Experience:

1. Convenience: Due to the pandemic, a lot of people got into the habit of contactless delivery or contactless payments. This gave the idea to get contactless food and drinks served on the home delivery. This demand for convenience gave good feedback from customers and lead to a better consumer experience. 53% of respondents feel that ordering takeaway or having meals delivered is crucial for the way their lifestyle is, as per a survey conducted by QSR magazine. Restaurants are planning ways to stay updated by investing significantly in technologies that will cater for the demand for conveniences such as contactless delivery and more safety features. The customers will be happier if they are ensured of their safety and distance when the order is delivered. This will increase customer experience in assertive manner.
2. Customized Customer Experience: This is the age of information and whoever has the access to a larger database of its target audience can lead the market. Data should be a major consideration when deciding a restaurant?s strategies and creating a devoted clientele in the current digital era. A competitive edge is the collection of priceless consumer data and its use of it to provide a personalised customer experience. Restaurants or cafes that use this strategy can promote to their patrons based on what they enjoy seeing, eating, and experiencing thereby improving the patron experience and fostering loyalty. Personalised customer experience may lead to better feedback and word of mouth about the best things you are offering at your premises. 
3. New Sources of income: it’s crucial to be able to rapidly switch to new modes of business models so as to prevent failure of business during unpredictable times. We have seen many times when a new technology or change in trend makes a business move out of the market in just a small duration of time. When the pandemic came and cities were put under lockdowns, many new revenue streams emerged as this part of the hospitality industry was striving to stay afloat. Ghost kitchens suddenly became the new normal and allowed food service providers to keep paying bills and put food on their own and customer experience on tables. In the last three years, cloud kitchens have become the most promising option with respect to new revenue streams. The trend will stay alive in the coming years and will evolve as technology evolves. 
4. Increased Focus on Equitable, Sustainable Food Systems: As more and more consumers are getting ready to pay the premium for sustainable offerings, food brands are finally placing there focus where it was meant to. They are working on their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals through various practices like zero waste, local sourcing, sustainable food and packaging, and so forth. The basic focus is now on gaining the consumers as well as producers? trust. By producers we mean the farmers, local food sellers, dairy suppliers, and others involved in the food chain. Gone are the days when sustainable restaurants were limited to sustainable food and packaging, it is also about effective waste management, reducing supply chain costs, creating an equitable food delivery system, and supporting the local community. For instance, all stores of Sweet green now have compost services which is reducing their waste generation by diverting 60 percent of their waste from ending in landfills and consume 75 percent of their foodscraps in compost. 
5. Kitchen Automation: Fast casual restaurants and quick service kitchens are also working on increasing the overall efficacy of food preparation and service processes. Kitchen automation is one of the classic examples of how AI and ML and penetrating all domains of hospitality sector including the kitchens. Automation is crucial when you own more than one kitchen and need to ensure consistent experience to consumers. The same stands true for multi-chanel delivery models. A streamlined cooking space definitely stands outs when you need to roll out hundreds of order per day and also gives enough room for trying new concepts. Profits and better revenues are some of the other perks that come in as inherent attributes of this trend.