Ever since I was a young boy I remember what a great feeling it was to walk into a restaurant or store and have the owner come up and greet my father personally, “Hi Sheldon, how you doing?…I got a great table for you…” Was it a great table? Maybe not all the time, but the fact that ‘my dad knew the owner’ felt special and I know my dad felt the same way.
You may not remember the name of all your customers. But you can just as easily greet them with a smile and say something like “It’s been a while how are you doing?”
Customers, and people for the matter in general, like the feeling of being known. Being recognized. So if you are the owner or manager, take 20 seconds to walk over to the table of a new customer and introduce yourself as the owner or manager. To ‘check in and see how everything is doing.’
And, when you see that customer next time, say “hi.” It goes a long way to making their experience with you a better and more memorable one. And that my friend, is how you get more repeat customers and bigger profits.