5 Ways to Step Up Your Customer Service This Summer

As days become longer and the temperature becomes warmer, you’re looking forward to a surge in customer traffic and the opportunity to provide unforgettable dining experiences to new and loyal customers at your restaurant. You need to turn tables fast, without reducing the quality of service. 

Restaurants like the Chicago summer favorite, Recess, use Lightspeed during their busy months to streamline employee communications, speed up orders and give customers an experience worth coming back for. 

If your POS and payments platform isn’t up to the challenge this summer, it’s time to look for a new technology partner that will keep you serving no matter what. From using online ordering tools to provide a smooth service to gathering data and insights to make the best decisions, Lightspeed Restaurant helps you overcome challenges like changing guest preferences, increasing competition and ongoing staff shortages. 

Streamline service and free up time with online and tableside ordering

As you open up outdoor dining areas, you need a way for guests to order wherever they are. 

Online ordering lets customers conveniently place orders using their smartphones, computers or any device with an internet connection. Customers can browse menus directly on their phones and make orders. With Lightspeed’s Order Anywhere, customers can make orders and pay their bills on their phones or computers. All orders are consolidated into the point of sale, allowing your staff  to manage them efficiently as part of their regular operations.

“Lightspeed has done a great job of helping us overcome challenges by just creating a simplified product where we don’t have things we don’t need, but we have everything we do need.” – Andrew Ketcham, Associate Director of Operations at Atomic Hospitality

1. Reduce ordering mistakes 

A busy day at the patio? Keep your service going without a hitch with tools that help eliminate manual order entry errors and streamline the preparation process, ensuring efficient operations even during peak hours. Customers can personalize their orders to their exact preferences, making sure special instructions or dietary restrictions aren’t left out. 

2. Give customers full control 

Online ordering also gives customers more flexibility over their entire dining experience. Whether they’re sitting at the bar or hanging out by the patio, guests can easily reorder as they please, and at the end of the meal they can split bills and checkout, all without having to wait for a server to go to their table. 

3. Increase staff efficiency

Online ordering can significantly alleviate the workload on staff members and provide them with more time to focus on other essential tasks. Staff can instead spend more time with customers, check in on orders more regularly, answer questions and focus on creating an exceptional experience. Without having to actually jot down orders, staff can efficiently manage incoming orders with the back-of-house team, prioritize tasks and ensure timely delivery or pickup. Ultimately, online ordering allows staff to focus on ensuring tables get their orders on time and customers are being taken care of. 

4. Get data you can act on

Providing customers with the best service should be your main priority this summer and keeping track of key data points is a big part of that. With advanced analytics fully integrated to your point of sale, you can get access to invaluable insights that could completely change the way you’re serving for the better.  

Andrew Ketcham, Associate Director of Operations at Atomic Hospitality, uses Lightspeed to gather data and provide a better service at his Chicago restaurant Recess. “Lightspeed has helped us greatly in how we run our business. I think one of our favorite features is the integration components that allows us to actually track, for example, a diner’s lifetime visits. We can actually figure out what their monetary spend is within these walls, allowing us to be able to tailor our needs to the needs of the venue and that’s a really important way for how we prepare for our future summer months, business and traffic.” explains Ketcham. 

5. Keep up the pace 

When staff need to run back and forth between a customer and the point of sale or back of house to take an order or payment, this creates friction and breaks the flow of the customer experience. Opting for a portable payments terminal that’s connected to the point of sale system makes it easier for staff to order and take payments wherever customers are. 

Boasting the largest multi level patio in Chicago, Recess is the place to be during the summer months. Managing a place of this size, however, means having in place technology that allows staff to communicate easily and take orders seamlessly. At Recess, Ketcham also uses Lightspeed’s tableside ordering to improve customer service. “One of the ways Lightspeed has helped us improve how we run our business is through the tableside order taking units. Our handheld units allow us to keep our servers face to face with the guest without having to run back and forth to the bars or to the kitchen. They can actually spend more time entertaining and making sure that the guests are taken care of in the proper manner.” 

Because guests can order and pay at the table, staff can easily take customer orders and send them to the kitchen without even leaving the table, making sure the conversation between staff and customer keeps flowing.  

Make a splash this summer with best-in-class tools

The first step to make the most of your summer season? Find a technology partner that can help you get ready this summer. “Utilizing Lightspeed has been a gift, quite honestly,” says Ketcham. We’ve added it when we started with one location here in Recess and we have since added two more across our portfolio. I can say if we expand again, we’d add it again. The reasons why: it’s simple to use, it’s efficient and over time we’ve built a good relationship with Lightspeed and its counterparts.” 

Talk to one of our experts to find out how to gear up this summer with Lightspeed.