Design Tips to Enhance Customer Experience in Retail and Restaurants

Customer experience has become a competitive arena for retail stores and restaurants, primarily due to its importance to business growth. Customer experience has become crucial in the success and failure of a business.

Proper competition births innovativeness and excellent services, and your business should prioritize getting the best customer experience. Retail stores and restaurants should also adopt a customer-led posture in their practices, recognizing the value of each visitor.

Therefore, you need the best tools to enhance customer experience. One such tool is design, which includes digital signage. Your store or restaurant’s design matters for brand perception and purchase value. In this article, we will explore design tips that can make your retail and restaurant a home for customers.

Influence of Design on Customer Behavior

To effectively employ design for a better customer experience, we must understand its influence on customer behavior. This is not to create manipulative tactics but to work towards satisfying visitors. Design determines to a large extent how customers interact with your store or restaurant. Every detail matters, from colors to choice of lighting. The design is a subtle guide, shaping the customer’s impression.

Employing design with a customer-oriented approach has tremendous benefits to the retail or restaurant. When a customer likes the design, they are more likely to become loyal.

How to Use Design to Enhance Customer Behavior

Having known the influence of design on customer behavior, how do you make it a practical reality in your retail and restaurant? Here are some tips to implement for maximum results:

Tip 1: Choose Colors Wisely

Colors play a huge role in the design process and are a major factor in how customers perceive your brand. In a few seconds, customers make their first impression of your restaurant or retail, including what the colors signify. Therefore, select your colors with care.

Your colors should align with how you wish to portray your brand, as well as popular sentiments around it. For more insights, check our guide on designing the perfect digital sign board.

Common colors include blue, red, orange, green, yellow, and a black-and-white combination. Blue communicates relaxation, but it is not popular amongst restaurants due to its association with artificial ingredients. Restaurants prefer red for its vibrancy, but retailers only use it to highlight certain zones.

Orange is also vibrant and is suitable for brighter restaurants. Kids are often associated with yellow, which retailers can use for the kid sections. Young people appear more interested in the black-and-white duo, while vegans appreciate nature’s green. Lastly, neutral colors like grey, brown, and tan work in industrial settings.

Tip 2: Have the Right Lighting

Lighting has a direct influence on a customer’s mood, and should also align with your brand image. Lighting complements color to make your restaurant cool or vibrant. For retail stores, lighting helps highlight key areas and products. Work on the right lighting, and you’ll record a high level of customer satisfaction. Our post on digital lobby signs offers more information on the importance of lighting.

Generally, there are three types of lighting:

1. Accent Lighting

Accent lighting set highlights specific parts of your retail or restaurant. It is used to showcase products, a display, a work of art, or some décor. Its goal is to either guide customer’s purchase or lighten their mood with an appealing object.

2. Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting is the main light. It allows customers to navigate their way through the restaurant or store. Because it is the main tool for visibility, ambient lighting must be carefully set. The level of brightness depends on the purpose of your business. However, ambient lighting should neither be too bright nor overly low.

3. Task Lighting

Task Lighting works like accent lighting but for a different purpose. It shines light on specific areas where customers would need extra lighting. In restaurants, task lighting is often placed above tables so visitors can easily read the menu. Retails may use task lighting in dressing rooms.

Tip 3: Work with the “Turn Right” Phenomenon

The “Turn Right” phenomenon is named after a popular customer behavior. When people step into a restaurant or retail store, a vast majority turn to the right, likely because they are right-handed. This behavior is the foundation for a highlighting strategy. Since people move right, retailers place their best offers there, ensuring that customers view those items. This increases sales and encourages buyers to purchase the best items, a mark of excellent service. Furthermore, it allows customers to navigate the store with ease.

In restaurants, the “Turn Right” phenomenon makes navigation easier. Customers can access key areas of the restaurant, like the waiting area or the cashier. Restaurant owners also manage seating arrangements better, improving customer experience.

In addition, retail and restaurants can leverage this phenomenon for their digital signage placement. Engaging and interactive screens encourage customers to spend more time. Speaking of digital signage…

Tip 4: Add Digital Signage to your Design

Your retail store or restaurant would be at a competitive disadvantage without digital signage. In our digitized world, customers associate digital signs with excellence, efficiency, and class, all of which magnify their experience. If you still use printed signs, consider switching to digital alternatives. The benefits are numerous.

Digital signage strengthens the relationship between customers and your business in many ways. The interactive features, welcoming content, and colorful visuals all appeal to people. Even more, digital signage provides flexibility, which makes updates easier. Digital signage is not reserved for bigger establishments. You can incorporate it despite the size.

Tip 5: Make Free Space

A cluttered space would make customers uncomfortable, diminishing their satisfaction and willingness to explore. Always leave free space for visitors to move around. It begins at the entrance. Except when rushed, customers often require time to relax and need enough space to do so.

Have space inside the restaurant or store too for easy circulation. Stores need the inner space in particular for shoppers to check out items. They shouldn’t feel tight and choked.

Tip 6: Have Special Events

Retail stores and restaurants complement their everyday sales and services with unique, special events, designed to improve experience. It's also a customer acquisition and retention tactic, useful for gaining new visitors and keeping existing ones.

Your events should be creative and memorable, shifting from the status quo to reflect more “out-of-the-box” thinking. To get more ideas, read our article on great examples of content for digital signage.

Tip 7: Keep Social Media in Mind

Our last tip involves designing your store or restaurant with social media in mind. Create an environment where customers would love to take pictures for their Instagram and other social media handles. When customers share their moments in your establishment, they develop a bond that could become long-term patronage.

Wrap Up

Design is of mutual benefit to your business and the customer. Its role extends beyond beauty, influencing your brand image and customer experience. The design combines color, space, light, technology, and tactics to offer each visitor a memorable time.

Your designing process should be informed and geared towards the goal of customer satisfaction.