Café and restaurant service evaluation
At a counter a visit lasts three minutes and is made of four moments. At a table it lasts an hour and is made of six. The difference is not which of them the software can measure — it is only how many sections the visit is split into.
How a visit runs
Two lengths, one shape
Every stage is a section of its own in the questionnaire and therefore gets a score of its own. The report's “weakest topics” ranks those sections, so the answer is not “82%” but “the product is fine, the greeting is not” — or “the food is fine, the bill takes too long”.
At the counter — four sections
Coffee shops, bakeries, coffee chains, street food, forecourt coffee, canteens
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1. The queue and the greeting
Did the barista take the queue on? Did they greet you? How long did you wait?
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2. Ordering
Could they recommend something? Were you offered anything with it? Was the order read back?
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3. The product
Was the coffee at the right temperature? Was there the right amount of milk foam? Was there latte art and good contrast? Did it taste right?
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4. The goodbye
Were you thanked on the way out? Were you happy with the service?
At a table — six sections
Restaurants, bistros, hotel breakfast
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1. Arrival
Were you greeted within a minute? Were you shown to a table? Was the table clean and laid?
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2. Menu and drinks
Was the menu handed over straight away? Were drinks taken before food? Was the special offered?
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3. Taking the order
Were you asked about allergies? Did the server know what was in the dish? Was the order read back?
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4. The food
Did the food match the menu description? Was it at the right temperature? Did the whole table get theirs at once?
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5. During the meal
Did anyone come to ask whether everything was all right? Were empty plates cleared? Was an emptying glass noticed?
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6. The bill and leaving
Were dessert or coffee offered before the bill? Did the bill arrive within five minutes? Was it correct, and were you thanked?
A counter is not always a café counter. A filling station's coffee machine, a hot cabinet and a canteen till run through exactly the same four moments, and the same questionnaire measures them — only the questions about the product differ.
These are examples, not a compulsory list. The questionnaire is yours: the sections, the questions, the wording and the points on every answer are yours to write, and they can be changed after the first visits have been recorded.
The place itself
The section that is word for word the same in both
These questions belong to no moment: the counter is dirty before anybody gets round to greeting you, and the toilets are what they are whatever was ordered. They go into the questionnaire as a section of their own — and because they are almost identical in a café and in a restaurant, this is the section on which two very different houses compare most directly.
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Cleanliness
- Is the counter or the table clean?
- Are the coffee machine and its tray clean?
- Have plates been cleared from the tables?
- Is the floor clean?
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Toilets
- Are the floor and the surfaces clean?
- Are soap, paper and towels there?
- Does the door lock and the light work?
- Is there a smell?
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Display and prices
- Is every product visible and priced?
- Is the menu or price list clean and undamaged?
- Are the posters and promotions current?
- Are new products where they can be seen?
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Atmosphere
- Is music playing, and is it too loud?
- Are the lighting and the temperature sensible?
- Is the customer area in order?
- Are the entrance and the surroundings clean?
Conditional questions
An espresso is not a cappuccino, lunch is not à la carte
Milk foam, latte art and contrast are three good questions — but only if the assessor ordered coffee with milk in it. The wine label and the dessert menu are good questions too, and only about dinner. If they are scored anyway, every assessor who drank an espresso and every assessor who came at lunchtime drags the house's result down.
So the first question asks what was ordered, or what kind of visit this was, and the rest — sometimes whole sections — appears according to the answer. A question that was not shown is not in the denominator either: seventy-five per cent on a three-minute espresso and seventy-five per cent on a three-course dinner really are the same result.
At the counter
What did you order?
Espresso · Coffee with milk · Iced coffee
↓ only if “coffee with milk”
Three questions about milk
The amount of foam, the latte art, the contrast — otherwise they are on neither the screen nor the score.
At a table
What kind of visit was this?
Set lunch · À la carte
↓ only if “à la carte”
A whole section about wine
Was the label shown, was a taste offered, was the glass filled properly.
Time and upselling
Two things a yes/no question swallows
Waiting
Waiting is the one thing that can ruin the visit before there is anything to say about the product — at a counter that is the queue, at a table it is from the order to the first dish. It belongs in the questionnaire as a rating or a slider, not as a yes/no: “how long did it take?” is not a question with two answers.
Worth knowing where a question's weight comes from: a 0–100 slider is worth a hundred points, a yes/no in the same questionnaire is worth one. If waiting should count for more than the cleanliness of the tablecloth, that is where it comes from — from the points themselves, not from some separate setting.
Upselling
A larger cup, a pastry with the coffee, a starter, a side, a second drink, a dessert — this is where service and revenue meet, and one multiple-choice question measures it: “what else were you offered?”, where every tick adds its own points.
In the report that single question can be opened up to show what is actually offered and what is not — and the location filter reads the same question house by house. Usually it turns out that one house offers dessert and the rest offer nothing at all.
From one house to a chain
Twenty houses, one standard
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The same questionnaire everywhere
One questionnaire for the whole chain, not a copy per house. That is what makes the Tartu number and the Tallinn number comparable — even where the menus differ.
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The summer terrace stays in the history
Archiving stops new visits but keeps the ones already recorded, in the reports. Last summer's number does not change because the terrace is shut today.
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How often anyone may visit
Set how many times one assessor may evaluate the same house. In a small town that matters: the same face for the third time this month is not an anonymous guest any more.
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The Monday summary
An e-mail at the start of the week: how many visits, the average, the change against last week, a row per house and the three weakest topics. Nobody has to log in for it.
Where the houses have different owners — franchisees, partners or area managers — that is a subject of its own: franchises and partner networks.
Try it in one house
Seven days free. Start from the sections above, rewrite the questions to your own menu and your own standard, and send the first assessor out.
Get started