Mystery Dining Company: The importance of customer feedback at your pub

With a food offer key to the success of many pubs, particularly since the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007, operators have been raising their game to try to provide a genuine, informal dining alternative to chain restaurants. However, with this transformation in offer comes increased customer expectation.

Measuring this expectation and responding to it is increasingly important if pubs are to succeed in the face of rising competition from the restaurant chains.

As part of The Mystery Dining Company’s (TMDC’s) series of monthly features focusing on customer engagement, we take a look at the importance of listening to your customers, gathering feedback, and being seen to respond effectively.

TMDC has conducted extensive research into the area of customer feedback in the hospitality industry, including pubs. In so doing it has carried out separate surveys of hospitality operators and their customers. An interesting revelation of this research was the disparity between operators’ expectations of feedback and the reality from the customers’ point of view.

When asked how they like to receive feedback, face to face is the preference of 45% of hospitality operators, with email the preferred method for 32%. Asking customers the same question revealed that comment cards are nearly as popular as face-to-face chats, as the preferred means of leaving feedback.

The comment card fits in with the classic British trait of avoiding confrontation. However, it would seem that operators tend to see them as a time-consuming method of engagement because, to be effective, they need to be processed and evaluated.

Online feedback can provide a compromise, keeping the comment-card format that the customer seems to like so much, but without the downside for the operator of having to physically process the cards. Customer feedback is valuable, but learning how to harness it and use it to your advantage is crucial.

Priority disparity

A surprising result of TMDC’s research is the disparity between what operators expect customers to complain about and the reality. When surveyed, hospitality operators overwhelmingly expected customers to complain about speed of service above anything else.

This is totally at odds with the result of the consumer survey, however, which placed speed (21%) a distant third as the most likely reason for complaints, behind food (41%) and service (35%).

Saying sorry

When things do go wrong, it is essential to rebuild goodwill through offering some form of compensation. TMDC’s research revealed a three-way tie when it came to operators’ preferred compensation methods.

Offering a discount off the bill (29%), complimentary drinks (48%) or a voucher to be used on a return visit (19%) were the most popular ways to deal with unhappy customers. However, a clear majority of customers preferred complimentary food or drink at the time of the complaint.

Are we getting it right?

There is always a risk of complacency about customer feedback, in any industry. TMDC’s research demonstrates that the hospitality industry can be guilty of this.

Two-thirds of operators surveyed said that the industry was better than most at listening to customers, while acknowledging that improvements could still be carried out, although 17% felt no improvements were necessary.

A similar proportion (62%) believed that fewer than half of their customers leave feedback, whether good or bad. In contrast, 51% of customers believe that operators do not make it easy to leave feedback, although this is an improvement on a similar survey conducted by TMDC in 2010, when 69% felt this way.

Top tips

Advice on getting the most from feedback

Don’t assume you know what your customer is thinking.
Customers like comment cards and they are clearly a valuable tool, but be mindful that they are time-consuming and expensive to process.
Online feedback can work as an effective alternative to the traditional comment card.
The Mystery Dining Company is seeking to make online feedback even easier through a trial using new technology to allow customers to leave online feedback at the venue as they pay their bill.