Would you like to know what your guests are saying about your restaurant?
Fortunately, restaurant survey questions may help you gather customer feedback and improve your service’s general quality level. You can now find exactly what they think of everything, such as service, food, delivery time, etc. Besides, it’s a straightforward process! The only thing you need to do is ask several simple questions online or on paper.
Collecting customer feedback will enable you to make specific changes that will enhance customer loyalty. Although it will take a little time, it could save many hours by improving customer satisfaction with each visit. Why don’t you try it?
This blog post discusses various restaurant customer survey questions that can help owners collect useful information and positively impact your restaurant.
Investing in the latest and the best restaurant computer software can also help you with customer engagement and capturing customer feedback.
Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
- 1 27 Important Restaurant Survey Questions
- 1.1 1. How did you find our restaurant?
- 1.2 2. What is your age group?
- 1.3 3. Which day of the week do you prefer to dine out?
- 1.4 4. How regularly do you dine with us?
- 1.5 5. Did you find our prices to be reasonable?
- 1.6 6. Did you use any of our special offers or discounts?
- 1.7 7. Did you use any of our loyalty programs?
- 1.8 8. Were there any issues with your order?
- 1.9 9. How would you rate the quality and taste of the meal?
- 1.10 10. Was there anything missing from our menu?
- 1.11 11. What is your favorite dish on our menu?
- 1.12 12. Did we provide food options that suit all of your dietary requirements?
- 1.13 13. Would you like to get a drink with us?
- 1.14 14. Was the wait staff helpful and attentive?
- 1.15 15. Did the staff have a positive attitude?
- 1.16 16. How was the speed of service?
- 1.17 17. Did you feel rushed? If so, why?
- 1.18 18. Was the checkout process quick, accurate, and efficient?
- 1.19 19. What genre of music would you prefer while dining with us?
- 1.20 20. How did you find our restaurant’s ambiance?
- 1.21 21. Was our restaurant clean? And if not, what requires to be cleaned more often?
- 1.22 22. Why did you pick our restaurant?
- 1.23 23. Did our restaurant meet your expectations?
- 1.24 24. How likely is it that you would revisit us?
- 1.25 25. What do you like most about our restaurant?
- 1.26 26. Is there anything specific about our restaurant that you would change or improve?
- 1.27 27. Is there anything we could do to encourage you to visit us more often?
- 2 What’s the Significance of Guest Feedback to Restaurants?
- 3 How Do You Get Your Customers to Leave Reviews?
- 4 Bottom Line
27 Important Restaurant Survey Questions
Here’s a detailed look into 27 restaurant customer survey questions and food survey questions essential for obtaining the information you want and ultimately improving your business.
Asking questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no (with an option to explain) on a scale from 0-10 or with a multiple-choice answer will give you more specific feedback that you can use to make changes. Open-ended questions that require a more extended response will provide insights into customer satisfaction but can also be off-putting.
1. How did you find our restaurant?
Since you use different marketing strategies, you must figure out which ones work. Well, this question will surely help you.
You can provide a dropdown list of specific answer options to test a promotion’s effectiveness. Such as, did you find the restaurant through Google maps, social media, or another platform like Yelp, TravelAdvisor, DoorDash, etc.?
If the most frequent answer is “from social media,” you’ll need to capitalize on that to attract more customers.
2. What is your age group?
With this question, you can know more about your customers. It will help you answer more questions like, what do they love to eat? How do they like their service? What would be the best time of day for them? And which is the most efficient location?
The answers will vary based on whether it’s better suited for young professionals working extended hours during the day or older people with more free time during the evenings. Many folks find this information beneficial when choosing where to eat!
3. Which day of the week do you prefer to dine out?
Once you know what weekday is ideal for your restaurant, it may help you identify when takeaway promotion ideas or offers are most effective. If customers love to come in on Tuesdays, you should consider offering specials such as burgers and fries!
4. How regularly do you dine with us?
There’s no denying that this is a classic multiple-choice question that can aid you in separating first-timers from regulars. Some of the answers may include: “This was my first time,” “I dine with you weekly,” “I visit you occasionally,” or “I come by at least twice a month.”
5. Did you find our prices to be reasonable?
The business must feel value in what they get, and the same applies to your customers. Nevertheless, if they seem unsatisfied or hesitant with their meals and general experience, it might be the price that put them off.
In such situations, brainstorm ways to lower prices without compromising quality and overall customer satisfaction.
6. Did you use any of our special offers or discounts?
These kinds of restaurant marketing survey questions can help you establish whether your promotions are effective or not. If you’re looking for feedback on specific promotions, you could follow this up with a simple multiple-choice question like, “If yes, which one(s)?”
7. Did you use any of our loyalty programs?
It would be best to figure out all the unique restaurant promotion ideas you can provide. There are two primary types: those that only offer discounts for particular items and those that give a discount on the whole meal. The most common promotions are Groupon and Loyalty Programs. Most software for restaurant management will offer the option of loyalty programs.
Dining Club Memberships offer members a specific number of free meals monthly can be helpful to know about before you dine at an establishment.
8. Were there any issues with your order?
If there were any problems with the order, such as taking a long time to deliver the food or the customer got the wrong items, this question will help you find out how to improve your service. Open communication with customers about their experience is important to ensure they’re happy with what they ordered.
If there was an issue, you could also expand on this question: Was the issue resolved to your satisfaction?
9. How would you rate the quality and taste of the meal?
You can use this food survey question to determine whether or not your menu is exciting or welcoming to prospective customers. It also offers a great place to start employee training to set a positive level of expectations.
Well, this is your chance to get a few new menu item ideas directly from the folks who visit your restaurant. Try asking this as a Yes/No question and have a follow-up question like “If yes, what would you prefer to see in our menu?” This will help you identify what you’re missing and ultimately increase your profits.
This will tell you much about your restaurant’s most preferred dishes. There’s no denying that if there’s a particular thing that customers love, high chances are they are going to order it over and over! And the more people say a specific food dish is their favorite, the better chance you have to prepare it properly and maintain it as a staple on your menu.
12. Did we provide food options that suit all of your dietary requirements?
Regardless of what kind of establishment it is, it would be better if someone had a choice available when they eat out to make them happy instantly. Even though some ingredients aren’t utilized, knowing which ones won’t work will help do away with a lot of confusion.
13. Would you like to get a drink with us?
Specifically, the answer to this question will tell you how your business is doing regarding alcohol. If your customers are also interested in ordering drinks, they’re spending more cash on food and staying relatively longer than if they never had any alcohol!
It’s also worth noting that the stronger the relationship between your client and their waiter or waitress, then the higher likelihood they will order.
14. Was the wait staff helpful and attentive?
It would help to know precisely how your customers feel and think about the service they’re receiving. If you’re not delivering customer-like attention, there might be something wrong with your restaurant’s policies or attitudes.
It might also mean that you should get more people attending to serving tables at any particular time, so nobody waits long for assistance or a drink refill from their server.
15. Did the staff have a positive attitude?
Undoubtedly, this fundamental element can be seen as a little bit positive or harmful to your business because customers like to feel comforted and heard. While this can be viewed as a good thing in the eyes of some customers, others may feel uncomfortable when you’re not as friendly and welcoming as you could be.
16. How was the speed of service?
This is essential because it will determine what sorts of people are visiting your restaurant and if it serves its patrons’ requirements.
What’s more, if customers aren’t talking to each other, there’s a high likelihood they’re talking poorly about your restaurant on platforms like Yelp or Facebook. Unfortunately, this can negatively impact your business and harm your reputation.
17. Did you feel rushed? If so, why?
Answering this question may assist you in gauging whether your restaurant successfully enables its customers to take enough time with their food. If they answered yes, you might want to ask: Was this a result of poor service or something else?
18. Was the checkout process quick, accurate, and efficient?
Whether you have counter service or table service, speed, accuracy, and efficiency at the point of sale are very important to the dining experience. If there are issues here, you need to pinpoint and address them right away.
19. What genre of music would you prefer while dining with us?
Quite frankly, this is important to ask. The music you’re playing when a customer walks in the door may affect their feelings towards your restaurant. Most folks claim that upbeat, energetic music usually makes them stay for a more extended period and keep ordering food!
20. How did you find our restaurant’s ambiance?
Based on what you’re looking to find out, you can consider splitting this question into multiple questions and become more specific in asking about music, seating, background, and much more. You could apply a larger scale for this question, such as 0 to 10, to have responses with more nuance.
21. Was our restaurant clean? And if not, what requires to be cleaned more often?
Generally, a restaurant’s cleanliness can be its single most valuable factor in customer satisfaction. Ensure that your establishment is clean and well-sanitized for the safety and health of your customers.
22. Why did you pick our restaurant?
There are a few reasons why customers might choose your restaurant over others. It could be the quality of the food, the friendliness of the service, or the convenient location.
Many people also prefer to go to nearby and easily accessible places, so they don’t have to spend extra money on transportation or parking.
If your restaurant can offer these things without high prices or parking fees, then you’re doing something right.
23. Did our restaurant meet your expectations?
It would help to know whether your customers have a good or bad experience. In general, this question may play a significant role in your business. And if you’re disappointed with the feedback, it might mean that you need to make an adjustment or change something in how the business is run.
24. How likely is it that you would revisit us?
This question can help you gauge how satisfied people are with your restaurant overall. If many say they’re unlikely to visit again, that’s a sign that something needs to be changed. On the other hand, if most people say they’re very likely or likely to visit again, that’s a good sign.
25. What do you like most about our restaurant?
It might seem like a fundamental question, but asking your customer what they love about your business is vital for gauging customer satisfaction. What’s more, it can assist in making changes and determine what you have to do better to be more profitable.
26. Is there anything specific about our restaurant that you would change or improve?
Simply put, consider what distinguishes your restaurant from competitors and offer suggestions for improvement.
27. Is there anything we could do to encourage you to visit us more often?
It would be wise to end your survey with an open-ended question. It enables customers to voice any thoughts they may have that haven’t been covered in the past restaurant survey questions. Simply put, it could serve as a suggestion box for ideas/things people want to experience or see at your restaurant.
What’s the Significance of Guest Feedback to Restaurants?
In general, guest feedback is vital to the restaurant business since it helps you know what your guests think to improve your menu, service, and broad dining experience.
Quite frankly, public review sites will only take you so far. Based on Harvard Business Review, most online reviews over-represent the most exaggerated views, including many exaggerated positive and negative reviews and only a few reasonable opinions. And this is why it’s common to find scathing reviews about how challenging it is to access parking near a restaurant, or even raving reviews about a particular chocolate cake, yet less neutral feedback.
Those polarizing reviews might be helpful, but they could misguide you into thinking of a worse situation than it is. Plus, they may keep you from prioritizing more meaningful areas of improvement. It’s also worth noting that sending post-meal restaurant customer surveys through email allows guests to share genuine feedback easily.
Typically, email surveys eliminate friction because guests don’t have to create an account or even share their specific thoughts in person. Because of this, customers will likely feel more willing to share their opinions.
Restaurant surveys allow you to reward guests for their loyalty, solicit and implement feedback, and make things right when it comes to less satisfied customers.
How Do You Get Your Customers to Leave Reviews?
You might be wondering how you can get customers to leave reviews. One of the best ways to make customers leave reviews is by incorporating reviews in your in-person engagement strategy, particularly with regulars.
Try sending post-meal feedback surveys to determine what guests think about your restaurant. Online reviews and social media are other effective ways to engage customers. And that’s why it is crucial to reply to online reviews to satisfy customers and make them feel connected to your business.
Bottom Line
These 27 survey questions for restaurants are essential because they will establish whether or not customers are viewing things in a way that might lead to future sales compared to the last time they came by. That means if they’re still discontented about the quality of the food, the prices, or one of your services, it will undoubtedly affect their ability to revisit the establishment.
To ensure that you start on the right foot, you could also think of a few restaurant survey questions to ask your customers before opening a restaurant, e.g., menu item testing survey questions.
