Cafe’s – Need to seat more waiting customers on Saturday night?

"Cafe’s – Need to seat more waiting customers on Saturday night?"

So you are looking to increase profits. How do you go about that? You could increase your prices, but that would likely anger the regulars, not to mention the ever increasing competitive nature of the market could lead to a drastic decrease in customers. So what else? You could increase the amount of customers you have at any one time. . But how can you do that without increasing your real estate size? Simple speed up the customer turn over rate.

One of the most frustrating things for a cafe or restaurant owner is when you have customers waiting for a table, or even worse, customers walking by because the wait times are too long for a table, all the while you have customers who are eating slowly. Wouldn’t it be great if you could speed up the time between seating and paying the cheque?

 

According to an article by Charles Areni, professor of marketing at University Of Sydney  has shown that the speed of the music playing can dictate the rate at which customers consume their food. “Diners eat more quickly – literally bring their forks to their mouths more frequently – when the music is fast rather than slow.”

What does this mean? Well simple:

When you have a slow night, for example, early in the week, you can play slower music and your customers will stay at your café longer and not even realise. This will cause then order more extras eg. Coffee, wine, dessert etc. On the flip side, when your weekend nights are fully booked and you need to turn tables quickly, you play faster tempo music and your customers will not stay as long. Allowing you to get more customers through the door.

Its amazing what music can do!

 

Further reading:

http://www.ppca.com.au/music-users-/restaurantcafetariff/.