Music is the most crucial element of any restaurant. It has a significant impact on customer happiness, loyalty, and satisfaction.
It also reduces ambient noise like chewing and diners’ conversations at the following table. But managing your in-store music shouldn’t be a big hassle for your business.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere in restaurants is essential to connect your diners and your brand. You want them to relax and feel home while enjoying your food and drinks. Music plays a massive role in creating this atmosphere. It helps set the mood and make people more receptive to trying new things or being more friendly with other customers. It also boosts staff morale and allows them to enjoy their job more. This is a big reason why it’s so important to pick the right music for your restaurant.
The music you choose can also affect how people perceive your restaurant and how much they’re willing to spend on food and drinks. For example, some studies show that restaurants with classical music are perceived as fancier and higher-end than those playing pop or rock. This can help you attract more high-end patrons and increase your average check size.
Besides the genre, the volume of the music is also an essential factor. If it’s too loud, it can interfere with diners’ conversations and can be distracting. On the other hand, if it’s too soft, it can be too bland and lack energy. The goal is to find the perfect balance that accentuates your dining experience without making it too noisy.
Mood
When music is played in your restaurant, it does more than provide a background sound. Research shows that the style of music you play influences the speed at which patrons eat and drink, their appetite, and how much they spend on food and drinks. It also can cloak noise from conversations from tables nearby. This is particularly important for restaurants with multiple seating areas.
Loud, fast-paced music has been shown to make diners eat and drink faster. It can even make them feel less complete after their meal! By contrast, a slower tempo, such as in classical or jazz music, causes people to linger longer and order more food and drinks.
While choosing a musical genre that fits your brand image is essential, having enough variety in the playlist is also a good idea to prevent music fatigue. A curated subscription music service is far better than free streaming services that offer commercials, chatter, and other unwanted distractions.
In addition to influencing customer experience, your restaurant’s music can boost the morale of staff members, too! When employees are happy, they work harder and give customers the best possible experience. Studies show that music can help reduce stress and anxiety during shifts and improve customer service quality.
Relaxation
Whether loud or soft music, a cafe’s background soundtrack must fit the venue’s atmosphere. Loud music can distract diners from their conversation and even cause them to lose their appetites.
When choosing your cafe’s music, try to stick to the genre that suits your brand image and tone of voice. Don’t be afraid to include a few different genres; mixing it up will prevent the listener from becoming bored with your music and help keep them engaged.
Aside from setting the mood and boosting customer spend, music can increase your restaurant’s dwell time and overall customer experience. According to an Association for Consumer Research study, music can affect how quickly people consume food and drink.
Studies have shown that faster-paced music causes diners to eat and leave more quickly. Still, slow music encourages customers to linger longer, allowing them to make additional purchases and enjoy their meals longer. The exemplary music service for cafes can help you manage your business’s volume, tempo, and genre to maximize the effects of your cafe’s background soundtrack. Doing so can increase your diners’ satisfaction and their likelihood to return. This will not only benefit your customers but also your staff.
Conversation
The music in your cafe should serve as more than just background noise. It’s a powerful tool that has the innate ability to change your emotions, behavior, thoughts, and actions. It is especially effective when used in a dining experience.
In addition to setting the mood, the right music can help to encourage conversation. The music should have a tempo and genre that fits the style of your restaurant. A study published in Psychological Reports showed that diners who eat at restaurants playing soft classical music were less likely to talk over each other. They also ate more slowly and enjoyed their food more.
This group dialogue promotes civic engagement, critical thinking, and neighborhood connections. They hoped it would spread with integrity and fidelity to its original form yet allow hosts maximum flexibility to adapt the process for their communities and contexts.
To host a successful Café, a cafe should provide three or four guiding questions and chart paper for each table. The questions should be related to critical content and be open-ended to elicit meaningful discussion. To keep the dialogue focused, it is recommended that each round be limited to a few minutes.