Customer Service Principle

Throughout business history, companies have introduced grand strategies designed to raise their levels of customer service. They soon discovered, however, that the strategies were the easy part. Getting employees to buy into the strategy and make it work proved more difficult. Not surprisingly, results were usually doomed to failure from the start.

This inability to "close the deal" has been a perennial cause of puzzlement and frustration to company executives. They assumes that once strategies are unveiled, employees will implement the program in such a way that customers notice an increased level of customer service.

Wrong. Not only do sales and service not rise; morale goes down with them! The reason? The assumption that customer service can improve without employee commitment. All too often, management forgets that strategies and programs start and end with their people.

This assumption is a throwback to the thinking of the American Industrial Age when employees were reduced to a component of production, not unlike a piece of equipment.
Industrial age thinking was based on the concept that employees did not want to work and were definitely not concerned enough to do quality work. Employees were given orders, and except for breakdowns (injury or illness), tasks were grudgingly completed. Of course time has proven again and again that employees DO want to work, they DO enjoy their work, and they want to care about the quality of their work. Research has shown that work plays a huge part in a person's self esteem, self worth and personal happiness.

To turn your strategy into reality, you must create an environment that builds employee pride and quality. It is absolutely vital that customer service be a long-term, everyday commitment that employees believe in. Otherwise, employees will think it just another passing management fad that will fade away after a brief flurry of activity like so many other programs. They've seen it all before and if they don't believe it, it won't succeed.

To illustrate the difference in employee attitudes consider this parable. An observer passed by two job sites and asked one employee from each what they were doing.
Employee one: I'm working like hell for too little money.
Employee two: I'm building a cathedral.

Notice any difference in attitude? One was sold on the project and therefore became part of it, while the other was merely a part of the machine. Which employee would you want representing your establishment?

Customer Service Principles:
•Commit to excellent customer service. Live it, breathe it, believe it, and reward it.

•Sell the employees on the whole, not just their part.

•Ensure that any Marketing initiatives emphasize your employees, not just your products. When morale and pride go up, you can bet services and sales will go up. Make your employees feel they are part of an elite group.

•Ensure all customer contact employees have autonomy to accommodate their customers, even if it means bending company rules. Then take a hard look at those bent rules, and see if they need to be discarded entirely.

•Be better than your competitor by knowing your competitor. Take your key people out to a competitor's operation, and talk about what works there and what doesn't (after you've left, of course.)

•Finally, keep the focus on your people: They ARE your business!

Quality Restaurant Service

Randall Turner, a dear friend of mine, dines out at least twice a week and knows good service; he also knows when the wait staff is indifferent. A recent experience at a restaurant in the area made the evening memorable for all the wrong reasons.

"I was there with business associates and wanted to try a new restaurant that had been touted", he recalls. "The place was cavernous and the eight servers outnumbered the customers."

It was a warm night and the small group decided to sit outside. After a long wait the server appeared. Filled their water glasses and disappeared. "We had to hunt for more water, bread and for the waiter so we could order," Randall complains. "There were only two other customers in the restaurant that probably sat 150 people. We knew the servers were out there but we could not see them. It was almost funny."

The service did not improve as the evening wore on.

"After the meal we ordered coffee and when it arrived sometimes later I tasted something strange and sweet in the brew," he relates. "When I asked the server what it was she replied, "I don't know what it is. It's something."

Having to chase down the waiter for the bill was the icing on the cake.

Although the food was good, the quality of service soured the entire dining experience. It was a new restaurant and perhaps the staff was working out a few kinks. But Randall says he likes to patronize a restaurant that will appreciate his business. "It is disappointing when the meal is superior but the service is not up to the same standards," he concludes. "That is what stands out in my memory."

Quality service is vital to the reputation of any eating establishment. It will make or break a business, and customers will not return if they don't get good service.

Not that providing quality service is easy. Customers can be demanding and the menu can be complex and ever changing.

Is quality service learned or is it fundamental to a person's nature? I think is a little of both. I think anyone can learn the basics of how to wait a table. but some people are naturally in tune with customers and how to go beyond just filling their needs, Those are the employees making the big tips.

Typically, servers earn minimum wages plus tips. Particularly hectic days can be costly, since a server is often too busy to provide the personalized attention to each customer that generates larger tips.

Experience providing good service anywhere can be transitioned into the restaurant industry. If someone worked as a telemarketer or a clerk, the same principles can relate to those in a wait staff or in other position in a restaurant.

Do Your Servers Understand the Magic Minute?

As a customer, we all know what tends to happen to our mood when after being seated we wait and wait to be recognized by someone.

A good rule of thumb, is for your guests to be greeted within 60 seconds after being seated. Any longer than a minute and the potential for irritation and frustration increases geometrically with each passing second.

During a service program I was conducting, a lady told me how a manager had impressed upon her the importance of recognizing the magic minute. One afternoon the manager got all the servers together for a minute and just before it started, dashed out to get something in his office. He returned and asked each person to write down how long they have been waiting for him to return. Most servers wrote down 4-5 minutes or more when in fact he had gone exactly "one minute".

A person's perception of time can be very different from reality. Especially when you're waiting, wondering if you've been forgotten, time can seem to creep by very, very slowly.

What a simple, yet brilliant way to demonstrate how important it is to greet and recognize every guest's presence as quickly as possible, within one minute after being seated. After a minute, the magic of the moment starts to wear off and the mood at the table starts to turn downward.

The Food Production Process - Part 1

Purchasing:
The character of the product the resulting product cost begin with the purchasing of the raw materials. Although poor preparation practices may destroy the quality of a good product, good preparation practices cannot instill quality where it never existed. The best menu merchandising policies cannot compensate for purchasing that is not alert to new products, new markets, and new trends. And cost control cannot be wholly effective in production or service if buying is inefficient.
Buying must always be judged by its overall effectiveness and never by price comparison alone. An item’s purchase price is only as important as the item itself; it may be five cents less per pound or 15 percent cheaper by price but 30 percent more expensive in actual yield. The buyer should be interested in the lowest price only when the items are comparable in quality and yield. Good buying procedures provide a food operation with the products most suited to its merchandising policy at the most economical price.
“Buying” is not to be confused with “ordering”. Buying involves making decisions and setting policies about what products to buy and how to buy them, approving the vendors to be used and determining the frequency of the purchases and the quantities to be bought. Ordering is clerical activity which is done within the buying policy.
There are two approaches to commercial food buying: the needs of the operation and the availability of products in the market. When the food service operation is located at some distance from a food distribution point, the buyer may have to begin with what is available to him and make adjustments in the menu and preparation accordingly. When product availability is not a problem, the buyer first analyses the needs of the operation and searches out the products he needs. Most often, the products ultimately purchased are a compromise between need and availability. Whatever the approach, the food buyer should have some understanding of the market in which he/she is dealing.
(Next Part 2- Structure of the Food Market)