Restaurants can learn from the Starbucks experience

The first thing to wrap your head around when it comes to restaurant marketing is that it’s not always about the food. Yes, your food must taste delicious. Yes, your menu should make your customers’ mouths water. But service, experience, and culture are number one (two and three).

Think about Starbucks. I recently wrote about the consistency of the Starbucks brand–how each store is the same (similar) and how the coffee and food are consistent. People want an attractive culture. People want a welcoming environment. People want what they expect (good service). If you don’t have this trifecta, like Starbucks does, going on in your establishment, your customers are not going to enjoy themselves. If they don’t enjoy themselves, they won’t come back and they certainly won’t recommend you to their friends.

So, think culture. Think environment. Think customer expectation. Are your strategies inline with this kind of customer experience?