By Lynn Carr and Jean Ragg, Senior Client Account Managers, Customer Perceptions

On Monday May 13^th, we were delighted to be invited to attend the 2019 Irish Restaurant Awards. Now in its 11th year, the Irish Restaurant Awards are arguably the biggest night of the year in the Irish hospitality industry. This year’s event garnered over 90,000 nominations from the public.

This was our 4^th year in attendance as the official mystery shop provider of the Irish Restaurant Awards and what a wonderful night it was.

Across a 5-week period in March and April, Customer perceptions conducted 450 Mystery Guest Inspections across Ireland. The results of these inspections held 40% of the weighting for the awards. It was no mean feat for the Customer Perceptions team, but as always, we were up to the task.

With 6 courses ahead, prepared by some of the best chefs in the country, we could not wait for the awards to begin. The starter, prepared by Ethna Reynolds of Nook Restaurant in Sligo, was a beautiful Tostada with Slow Roast Pork Belly, Beetroot Crema, Pickled Rhubarb, Salsa and Feta. This was followed by a Wild Garlic and Nettle Crumb Soup served with a selection of breads prepared by apprentice chefs.

The fish course was a beautiful Steamed Monkfish prepared by Paul Hynes of La Cote Seafood Restaurant in Wexford, while the main course prepared by Tom, Flavin of The Limerick Strand Hotel was Wild Boar with Free Range Pork Boudin and Mature Cheddar Colcannon.

To finish, dessert was a Velvet Cloud Set Cream with Valhrona Opalys, Strawberries and Highbank Balsamic prepared by Conor Mee of Courthouse Restaurant in Carrickmacross. This was literally heaven on a plate. The All-Ireland Cheeseboard followed this, and was divine, consisting of goat’s cheese, blue cheese and brie.

Loam Restaurant in Galway scooped the top prize of Best Restaurant in Ireland, while Graham Neville of Dax Restaurant was awarded Best Chef in Ireland. We were delighted for Eastern Seaboard Bar & Grill who won Best Restaurant in Leinster, a much-deserved prize for a local establishment.

It was a fantastic night. It was a true testament to the hard work of the Restaurant’s Association of Ireland and a great opportunity to celebrate the commitment, passion and skill of those in the industry. As we left, the Krispy Kreme doughnut wall caught our attention. A snack for the road, as if we hadn’t eaten enough already!

 

For more information on our Hospitality Services click HERE

Customer Perceptions are delighted to be exhibiting once again at the Retail Excellence Retreat and Expo, which is taking place at Citywest Convention Centre, Dublin, from the 21^st to the 22^nd of May 2019. This is Customer Perceptions third year exhibiting at this fantastic event.

We are located at stand N5, and will be on hand to have a chat about any Market Research services you may need.

We will have plenty of information available on all of our services such as Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Audits, Social Media Monitoring, Focus Groups and much more. Drop by to see a live demo of our reporting dashboards. You will be amazed at how much insightful data you can have at the touch of a button.

We are also pleased to announce we will have demos available on the day of our instant customer feedback tool called TellUsFirst™. This tool gives you the power to talk to your customers before they leave feedback elsewhere.

This year, the Retail Excellence Retreat and Expo has a fantastic line up of speakers. We are really looking forward to hearing some of the speakers. Keith Rogers, Head of Operations in Ecco will give a talk about how to ‘Motivate Your Team To Motivate Your Business’ – a fantastic topic. We are also really interested in hearing Jean McCabe, MD of Willow talk about ‘The Willow Store – from Clicks to Bricks’. Jean and her team led Willow to winning the Retail Excellence Store of the Year 2019.

To organise a meeting with us during these two days, please email info@customerperceptions.ie. We would be delighted to chat to you on the day.

Alternatively follow our social media accounts for updates throughout the two days.

By Megan Clarke, Client Account Supervisor, Customer Perceptions.

At Customer Perceptions, we each set a quarterly goal that we want to achieve. For Q1 2019, my goal was to organise a team building activity for each quarter of the year. I knew great things would come from this as it would give us the opportunity to communicate with each other outside our normal day-to-day.

For Q1, I decided to incorporate fundraising into our team activity and increase our corporate social responsibility. Everyone on the team felt this was a great idea and jumped at the chance to do something for the community.

I came across an advertisement on the Women’s Aid Facebook page which gave me the idea of organising an event to help raise funds for this charity on International Women’s Day. The entire team donated, and we set out for our lunchtime walk on Friday, March 8^th.  We walked the length of the Navy Bank in Dundalk and back to the office where we enjoyed an organised lunch together.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and at the end, we were so happy to send our donation off to Women’s Aid which is such a great cause. They have been working in Ireland since 1974 and channel their efforts into stopping domestic violence against women and children. This was a fitting charity to raise money for on International Women’s Day, a day when we celebrate gender equality and women’s achievements.

Happy International Women’s Day!

 

If you would like to know more about Customer Perceptions click HERE

by Ruth O’Connell, Account Manager, Customer Perceptions

“We arrived at the RDS for the third and final day of Catex 2019, we were super excited for what the day had in store for us. Our lovely neighbours in the UCC ensured our energy levels were kept up by supplying us with an endless amount of pizza slices. Coffee and Pizza, breakfast of champions.

We were again in awe at all of the interesting and eye capturing displays and stands. Each time we visited a new stand, our rubber arms were twisted to try a sample, it would be rude not to 😉 From pizza, to cakes, burgers, ribs, goujons, and ice cream, the options were endless.

The day began with the Declan Byrne, President of the Bartender’s Association hosting a seminar, it was followed by a question and answer session at the Chef Network Lounge on how to progress your career and succeed in the industry, which was also extremely enjoyable and interesting.

After a lovely chat at the Laura Ashley stand, I cannot wait for their tea rooms to come to Ireland, I will most definitely be visiting for an afternoon of tea and treats. An afternoon of sophistication and bliss, it will be something not to miss.

Later in the day, the Avonmore Irish Latte Art Competition took place, there were some magnificent creations. To end the day the results from the Barista and Latte Art finals were announced, well done to all involved especially to Wojciech Tysler who will go on to represent Ireland at the World Barista Championships in Boston in April. I personally struggle to make a nice cup of coffee never mind topping it off with a work of art.

The last day did not disappointment, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and all the interactions with the different people we met from all industries. We also left Catex with a delicious Strawberry Gateaux from Patisserie Royale. We are excited to bring this back to the office for tea time tomorrow.

Thank you Catex 2019, it was a pleasure.”

 

For More information on our services click HERE

Catex Exhibition is Ireland’s largest foodservice and hospitality show, which takes place every 2 years in the RDS, Dublin. With more than 10,000 participants attending the last event in 2017, we were expecting big things, and Day 1 did not disappoint!

Catex 2019 kicked off at 10am on Tuesday 26th February, with the crowds appearing straight away.
Our stand was located just inside the main door on the right, so it was a lovely welcome face for all the crowds as soon as they started to arrive 🙂

We were located directly opposite the UCC Coffee stand (UCC Coffee – The Total Coffee Solution) which meant the wonderful baristas there kept us in coffee for the day. Along with our other lovely neighbour, Patisserie Royale, keeping us in cakes, we knew this was going to be a good event!

There were some incredibly impressive stands on display throughout the show and none other than Henderson Food Services, and it was so lovely to catch up with the Barista Bar team.

Also great to see so many people from the Hospitality and FoodServices Industry there – Laura from Butlers, Michael from Bujo, Dara from Insomnia and Charlie from JumpJuice, as it’s always a pleasure catching up with these guys.

At 11am the Chefs Network Masterclass kicked off and continued throughout the day with some of the finest chefs producing mouthwatering dishes!

The Avonmore Barista Championship was one of the main events for Day 1 where Ireland’s leading Barista’s put their skills to the test in this intensive challenge – and it was great to see one of the regional managers for Insomnia on the judging panel.

With companies going to such lengths with impressive stands, displays and innovation, it easy to see why this is classed as ‘Catering Inspiration’. We are looking forward to the next 2 day already.

Customer Perceptions are thrilled to be exhibiting at the forthcoming CATEX trade expo, Ireland’s largest food service & hospitality event, which is taking place at the RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin, from 26th to 28th February 2019.

We can be found at stand M5, and are excited to be showcasing all of our Consumer Market Research services.

We are specialists in mystery shopping, consumer surveys/customer satisfaction and market field investigations. We have been in operation since 1995 and are experts in the hospitality sector. We conduct mystery guest/visitor assessments to a wide number of hotels, B&B’s, tourist attractions and restaurants and bars nationwide.  We work in partnership with all clients to ensure that our reports measure both company standards, compliance issues and the customer experience. All reports provide key insights which are easy to interpret and are in line with any KPI metrics already in place. From our panel of field researchers, we can profile experts in the Hospitality field or we can select from genuine customers in specific locations.

For the last number of years, we have been the official mystery guest providers for the Restaurant Association of Ireland.

Additionally, at Catex we will be showcasing our new Social Media Monitoring Services.  Social Media Monitoring automatically collects location-specific information on Social Media best practices, brand consistency, and your company’s Social Review Rating.  It gathers individuals reviews from over 50 online sources and incorporates this data into user-friendly, easy to navigate dashboards giving you specific and measurable results for your company’s online presence at an extremely affordable price.

As the TRADE event for the foodservice industry, CATEX will be a buzz of activity across the three days, as it plays host to the Irish Barista Championships, Irish Cocktail Championships and over 1,000 chefs will be competing in the Panel of Chefs’ Chef Ireland Competitions.

To register to visit and be part of Ireland’s leading industry event, for FREE, please visit www.catexexhibition.com

Click the link to have a chat with us, we would love to hear from you

www.catexexhibition.com/customer-perceptions.html

If you can’t make the event, visit our Facebook Page and Instagram Account to see photos from the event.

Business Growth and higher Profitability can be created through knowing what two groups of people think and feel about your business, (i) your customers and (ii) your staff.

 

At Customer Perceptions we have processed over 800,000 ‘Customer Feedback’/ Mystery Shopping Reports and our research and client engagement clearly show that:

 

1. There is typically a big gap between the Service which Retail & Service managers think they are delivering to customers and the actual customer experience.
2. Profit margins are considerably higher from sales made to returning customers as they don’t have “a customer acquisition cost”

 

Working every day with vast quantities of highly valuable customer insights we are often reminded of two great quotes from the founder of the world’s largest retailer Walmart, Sam Walton, who believed

1. “There is only one boss and that’s the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else” and
2. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish”

 

In more recent times Richard Branson has been saying that “surprisingly at Virgin we do not put the customer first, our employees are the company’s top priority”. While this breaks with decades-old business wisdom, it has worked so well for Virgin that Branson goes on “I’m surprised more companies haven’t adopted an employee-centric management strategy.

It should go without saying, if the person who works at your company is 100 percent proud of the brand and you give them the tools to do a good job and they are treated well, they’re going to be happy,”

Closer to home, Ireland’s best known retailer Fergal Quinn describes in his book “Crowning the Customer” how to apply “the boomerang principle” to customer service, attitudes and behaviour.  With numerous other ‘nuggets of good practice thinking’, the book is as good a read today as it was when written 25+ years ago.

However, we really don’t need world leading business gurus or expensive business consultants to tell us that it is critically important to have our staff trained to do their job properly. Thereafter, if we create a work environment where people are happy and feel respected, these people have higher levels of productivity, have lower levels of sickness & absenteeism, look after your customers MUCH better and these customers in turn buy more and return more frequently  …it’s actually hard to make it complicated.