Restaurant Talking Points

According to a recent survey, more than half of us made a new years resolution this year…but only 9 percent are “actively doing something about it.”

The good news is I made a resolution (tame the waist bulge). The bad news is I’m one of the 91 percent not doing anything about it. Sometimes it’s not always good to be in the majority.

Of all the restaurant owners and managers I’ve spoken with recently, most fall into the group that are making resolutions. The two common themes when speaking with them about their New Years resolutions:

1. Improve Service
2. Increase Sales

Funny how this short list doesn’t change much from one year to the next. I’m sure your list is similar. Today, let’s look at how communicating your service expectations will put you in the 9 percent group. That’s the minority group that is “doing something about it”.

When your sales team (Wait Staff) hits the floor this year, what are some of the things you want to make sure are taking place? What are your service expectations? In other words if you close your eyes, wave a magic wand and “poof” each team member is doing everything exactly as you envision it to be done…what does that look like?

Maybe your vision starts with each guest being greeted by a confident, knowledgeable server who has a great smile and a positive attitude. You see your guests getting their drinks placed on the table a couple of minutes after sitting down. And in your vision you hear your servers describing, no strike that, SELLING the daily specials, appetizers and desserts by creating beautiful images with mouth watering words.

So you have this vision of what utopia looks like for your wait staff (or maybe you don’t, in which case we can help, call us). Now ask yourself; does my team know what my service expectations are? What am I doing to communicate my vision and expectations? For example:

I visited a new restaurant last month where the waitress presented us with her business card. That’s a tactic we preach to our customers so I like this place right away. I looked at the card and something at the very bottom caught my eye. It was a heading that read “Server Goals “.

Under the heading was the standard (yawn) bullets “Provide friendly service” and “Ensure a great visit” but they also included several statements that I found quite interesting. “Greeted in 30 seconds” and “Drinks to the table in 90 seconds”.

Measurable service expectations!

After our server, Joni, rushed off with our drink order, I pressed the stopwatch button on my watch. Hey, I figure if they are going to advertise it, I’m going to measure it. And the result…..80 seconds.

This restaurant not only communicated their service expectations to the staff but they went a step further and communicated those same expectations to their guests! I’m not saying to print your expectations on business cards but that’s one way to communicate them.

Lets look at my top 4 ways to communicate service expectations with your team?

1.) Classroom Training - This is a great way to lay out your service foundation and expectations. If you only use the shadow method for training new hires, they won’t get this foundation.

2.) Pre-Shift Meetings - Used correctly, pre-shift meetings are a great forum to reinforce of your service expectations. We’ve developed pre-shift templates and training that we’ll be talking about later this year.

3.) Post Server Sales Averages - You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Post a list of the servers per-person sales averages for AM and PM shifts. Order the list by the averages and draw a line where you want your average to be. Powerful communication message here.

4.) Pull out the stop watch - Did you know the national average for initial approach of a waiter to a table is 1-2 minutes? Let your staff know where they are with their service timing, and where you would like them to be.

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It’s easy to say “I want to increase sales” or “I want to improve service” but few restaurants take any real action. Make it a point this year to communicate your service expectations. By doing so you will be joining the successful minority that act on their resolutions and plan on making 2006 a great new year!

Jeff Hookham
CEO, 4 Remarkable Service
www.4remarkable.com