Ways To Use Restaurant Music to Impact Sales

When you’re a restaurant owner your focus is on catering to people’s sense of taste. Right?

But, really, it’s not. If you own the restaurant, you are required to pay attention to the five senses.

Why?

The truth is , all senses are interconnected. Each impacts the other in a myriad of ways. Touch, smell, sight tasting, and hearing are all interconnected elements of the whole human experience, that’s why all these elements come into play when you create the perfect ambience in your establishment.

How often do you listen to noises in your favorite restaurant?

Restaurant music plays an important impact on the overall experience. There’s plenty of research that supports the idea that music in restaurants directly affects the perception of flavor.

A particular study found that “listening to a soundscape with a lower pitch will help emphasize the bitterness of the bittersweet toffee, whereas listening to a music track that has a higher pitch is likely to highlight the sweetness.”

The background music of restaurants can influence the speed with the rate at which patrons consume their food and drink in addition to the quantity and quality of food they purchase and consume.

5 Strategies to Use Restaurant music to boost sales

Food and music have been linked throughout time and across cultures.

However, as with your restaurant’s decor, your music selections shouldn’t be the same. It is important to adjust the your volume, tempo and the genre to a range of variables in the course of your restaurant’s services.

Sounds complex?

We’re here to assist you.

1. Change Speed and Tempo

It’s as simple as it can get. Studies have shown that faster-paced music makes people eat more quickly.

The idea of making people feel stressed is never the aim however, if your establishment isn’t large and needs an increase in turnover to keep the profits at a high level, music that is faster-paced could be helpful.

On the other hand slowing it down could encourage your guests to stay long enough to have another drink or coffee or dessert.

While there’s no set standard regarding speed, it’s crucial to know the impact it can have on the behavior of guests. The pace you select for your meal music must be determined by what impact you’d like to impart on your guests. It’s based on the kind of restaurant you run such as a casual eatery, 5-star or something else in between.

2. Play at a high volume

Let’s begin with the obvious. If your music is too loud, it will make people turn away. Period.

However, what they don’t know is that music with a quiet tone can be a distraction for customers as it gives the impression that your establishment is about to close.

From these two extremes consequences of volume aren’t as simple as they appear when it comes to genre and pace. Gender and age affect people’s preferences in terms of volume. One study revealed that younger individuals tend to stay longer when the music is louder, whereas older people are more likely to remain when the music is on the background.

Similar to all other things, you’ll have to be able to see the room and apply your judgement. The volume can be adjusted throughout the service based on the when it’s time and the quantity of customers eating.

3. Make sure your music choices are on-brand

Music genres has a profound impact on the way diners view your company and impact the amount they’re willing pay for food or drinks.

This study, for instance, revealed that people will be more inclined to buy premium wines when a restaurant is playing classical music than top 40 or pop music. This study also showed that consumers are more likely to purchase French wines whenever French music is played as well as German wines are more likely to be purchased is more likely to be purchased when German music is playing.

The most important thing to consider is selecting music that is in tune with the general atmosphere of the restaurant. However, you don’t need to be a pigeonholed person. Find a common thread that is a common thread that connects your music choices with enough variety to keep the music from becoming boring.

If, for instance, you’re the owner of the Tiki bar, create an playlist that incorporates the occasional surf rock, a bit of Hawaiian folk and a touch of 50s rockabilly, to stay in line with the brand, without sacrificing range.

4. Change Your Music Selections in accordance with the Time of Day

The time of day can affect the volume, tempo and even the style of music. In the lunchtime crowd of the business district may opt for a faster-paced playlist with a moderate volume to allow peace and quiet without limiting conversation. If you are switching to dinner, that same restaurant may require to play a bit faster and more loud music that resembles old-school soul to keep the party going for larger parties and increase the number of drinks ordered.

5. Selecting Music based on the size of the crowd

Human bodies are an incredible thing. Did you know that we absorb about 0.3db of sound simply from being present in the space?

This means that you are able to turn the volume knob up when the restaurant is already full and then lower it when it’s not as busy.