A common element with the most of the eateries is that their menu description is wanting. In most cases, they do not give a reflection of what the customer is to expect thus giving customers a hard time in making a decision on the meal to take. This post will look at some of the tips to making improvements to your menu for a better customer experience.
Now, since the issue with the dull menu that rarely tells their audience is widespread, it is important to address it. When this is done, the business owners running the small restaurants will be in a better place to meet their customers’ expectations.
With this, the customers will prefer to come in more regularly, make referrals and also increase their satisfaction and choices in your restaurant. Also, with enhances food menu descriptions, the restaurant is bound to experience growth, and this is the expectation of any business owner.
With an effective menu, your restaurant is bound to stand out from the rest as we have noted earlier that this a challenge that faces most businesses.
To achieve this, an overhaul of the entire menu is necessary and though this time and considerations, the results are rewarding.
Later in this post, we will look at the specific steps to take to ensure that the new menu is descriptive enough. All this is designed to ensure that your customers have adequate selections. Also, they are able to easily relate to what is being offered, and this makes the restraint feel friendlier.
A detailed menu enables the customers to have more choices, and this makes them want to come back in future to try the other options.
It is estimated that an average customer takes about 90 seconds to go through a menu before making an order. This duration rarely changes and as a result, a menu that is not descriptive, a customer is not likely to get the right dish. On the other hand, with a menu description that makes the customer’s mouth water, the right dish is almost guaranteed.
In fact, it has been established that customers are likely to order more in a single sitting where there are descriptive restaurant menus. It, therefore, implies that your business is bound to earn even more with this approach while still making the customers happy from this simple adjustment.
7 ways to describe your restaurant menu effectively
Several ways have been proven to tweak a menu description to ensure that it is enticing enough to the customers.
This section will look at the 7 ways that have yielded the best results, and they can be prescribed to any restaurant seeking to gain a competitive edge.
They include:
1. List the ingredients and include their origin
By stating the ingredient and adding the geographic origin of it, your restaurant will stand out from the rest and have a sense of identity.
Also, this also adds value to the ingredient as it is differentiated from any other in other restaurants. The identity can also drive you to a niche market especially to the people who come from that region or even the people who like sampling.
For example, a title such as “Clarinda, Iowa, grilled goat ribs” offer specific details about the origin of the goat ribs in this menu.
2. Give emphasis on the house-made ingredients
Now, when it comes to your signature ingredients, it is important to ensure that the customers get to know you make them. With this, the restaurant becomes unique, and this is always rewarded by the customers willing to pay more for the service or making referrals.
However, with this option, caution should be exercised by ensuring that they only offer their best signature ingredients as undesirable ones could be a deal breaker here.
In addition to ingredients, if there exists a unique preparation procedure for some meals, it is worth letting the customers know as they would really appreciate it.
3. Focus on Health
At the present time, more people are becoming conscious of what they eat and how it is prepared in an attempt to encourage healthy living.
Being a restaurant that appreciates this and actually supports them means a lot to such people, and they would choose your restaurant at any time.
In fact, even those that are not actively observing healthy living would appreciate that something is being done to promote healthy eating. Thus, it is important to conduct the necessary research on the healthy options and ensure that they are included in the menu.
4. Be accurate and clear
In as much as the menu needs to be descriptive, it should also be clear and accurate to the customers.
Remember that customers take less than 2 minutes to go through a menu and if it is not clear, they may not end finding the perfect dish for them despite it being available.
Clarity and accuracy can be achieved by categorizing the various meals and using words to describe food on a menu.
5. Use of Brand names
If the ingredients used are from a popular and respectable brand, it will make a lot of difference in naming the brand.
With this, customers would be assured of quality and especially having a number of top brands in your menu makes it be known that you strive for the best.
6. Use pictures but with caution
Images are a sure bet that the customers will be in a position to put this into perspective and as a result, understand the menu more.
However, this should be used with caution and possible with a disclaimer.
This is because the possibility of the photos looking better than the real dish and also they tend to cheapen the menu.
7. Describe how unfamiliar ingredients taste
When it comes to ingredients, the best way to understand this is by tasting. However, this is not possible, and unfamiliar ingredients do pose a unique challenge.
Nevertheless, by offering a description of how they taste, this could ease this challenge.
With the above guide, you can try and implement the above 7 tips, and there will definitely be a positive response by the customers and the business as well. In the event you experience challenges making these adjustments, you could seek the services of menu engineers for better results.
Once these adjustments are made, drop us a comment to let us know the outcome.
