Restaurant Talking Points

They’re young, smart and outspoken. They have grown up immersed in a digital-and Internet-driven world. And if you have employees that are in their late teens and early twenties, they work for you. This is Generation Y.

While it’s often noted that Gen Y is a very high performing generation, I’ve made some observations relating to service pitfalls that tend to dominate this group. In this article I’ll touch on three of these issues and provide coaching solutions to help in fixing them.
 

“Hi Guys.”

When a server walks up to a table of mixed gender and says “Hi Guys”, we in the service business call this a “poor” welcoming statement. (We actually use slightly different wording but I’m using the family friendly version :))

A welcoming statement should do many things, but what it shouldn’t do is alienate one of the genders sitting at the table.

I’ve met very few ladies that like being called a guy. In fact, I have a friend who couldn’t get a female free-lance designer to work on his project because he put “Hi Guys” as the opening of an email he sent. Ouch!

The scary part for me is I’ve found myself starting to use this phrase in informal gatherings with friends. And I have to admit, (as the song goes) it’s a hard habit to break.

If you catch your staff using this phrase with guests, pull him or her aside and offer some coaching. Have them prepare a planned welcoming statement to use with their guests. “Hi Everyone…” or “Hello thanks for coming in today…” are some simple examples that won’t offend.

A well planned out and rehearsed welcoming statement will make it much easier to break the habit of  saying “Hi Guys”.
 

You da Man…Here’s the Check

This isn’t just a generation Y problem but it surprises me when I see it happening with them. Aren’t these kids supposed to be the enlightened ones? Isn’t this the group that sees gender as neutral and men and women as equals?

So why is it that I keep getting the check?

I enjoy many business lunches with women. But being of the male gender set I would guess that I’m presented with the check 75% of the time. Which is a bit awkward because I’m usually not the one paying the bill.

Coach your staff that unless someone calls for the check, just lay it in a neutral position on the table.
 

Look them in the Eye

I was reading an article that said 97% of this generation has a computer and a cell phone. With these devices most of their communication is done digitally. Face to face communication is not something they are as familiar with. That’s a problem when trying to provide Remarkable Service, which is mostly about face to face communication.

Eye contact, and maintaining that eye contact, is very important during the communication between server and guests. It shows the guest that they have your undivided attention.

The first two parts of creating hospitality are 1.) Look at me and 2.) Smile at me. Observe and practice this with you staff to make sure they are getting this right. What may come easy and natural to you may need to be practiced for others.

————-

When you observe your staff modeling any of these negative behaviors, work with them to correct the problem. Generation Y is going to be the primary workforce in the restaurant industry for many years to come so look for opportunities to coach this high-performing generation to provide Remarkable Service.

My first job out of college was for an Insurance company in Des Moines, Iowa. I worked in the training department under the leadership of Mr. Crane, the Vice President of Sales. A good man, he taught me several valuable lessons that I’ve used throughout my career.

One of the first lessons he taught me is the one I want to talk about in this article. It’s very applicable to the food service industry and it’s a lesson that every owner and manager should be keenly aware of:

Inspect what you Expect

As owners and managers, each of you have certain expectations of what a guest is going to experience when they dine at your establishment. You have expectations about the food they will enjoy, the atmosphere, the physical environment, and you certainly have expectations about the service that will be provided.

For example, each of you has an expectation around what happens immediately after a guest is seated at a table. You expect the guest to be greeted by a server in a timely manner. The national average for this timely interaction is two minutes. But how many of you think of your establishments as average? 

We have clients that expect the guests to be greeted within 30 seconds and the drink order to be delivered within the first two minutes of being seated. Now that’s Remarkable Service!

But just because you expect something to happen does not mean that it is going to happen. I expect my little toddler to put her shoes on while getting dressed in the morning. But upon inspection, well, life is full of little disappointments

So after you define your expectations and you communicate that message to your staff via your training and pre-shifts (We can help you define your service expectation, call us), you have to inspect what you expect. This can be done in several different ways.

Walk the floor
A great way to inspect if your service standards are being met, is to walk the floor during peak revenue periods. Touch the tables, and by that I mean talk to your guests, to make sure their expectations are being met. (Quick point: Your expectations mean very little if they don’t align with your guests expectations.)

While you’re walking the floor, look for things that are not meeting your expectations and also look for things that are being done properly. When you are coaching an employee it’s best to offer praise along with your corrections.

Now I can already hear your collective thoughts. “The staff does great when I’m around, it’s when I’m not there that everything goes to pieces.” There is a solution for that.

Secret Shoppers
A lot can be said about secret shoppers but for this article lets keep it short and just say that if you want to be absolutely sure your expectations are being met, this is a great way to inspect what you expect.

How would you like to see the intensity level of your wait staff go up? Start posting secret shopper scores for everybody to see

A secret shopper program works because, when done correctly, you can compare your service scores on a month by month basis. You can’t improve what you don’t measure and this is a great way to measure your expectations.

Summary
Inspect what your Expect. It’s a simple concept that will bring a great deal of success to those that follow this life lesson.

Another year, another New Years resolution list. First on my list this year is I’ve decided not to smoke. I should mention I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life so this one should be a slam dunk. Next on my list is my weight. It’s not that I need to lose any of it; I’d just like to move and firm up what I have. This one will take a little more work.

Last on this years resolution list, have more fun. My girls, aged 4 and 1 inspired me to add this. Outside of having to eat their vegetables they always seem to be having fun and enjoying life. I’ve also noticed they learn at a much faster pace and retain more when the learning is surrounded in a fun activity. I think there is a lesson here for restaurants training their staff. Keep the learning fun!

For your service staff it’s great to have a structured training process in place, in fact it’s imperative for success. (Please contact us if you need help with this). But that training is not going to “Stick” and retention will be low if the training isn’t interactive and at least a little fun.

And while the impact training that you do for new hires should be mandatory, it’s the follow-up, or reinforcement training, that will sustain Remarkable Service and maximized tickets.

For example, in our training we teach how to sell desserts and after-dinner-drinks. But if you want your staff to focus on this during their shifts you can’t just keep harping on them to sell, sell, sell because after awhile it will fall on deaf ears.

So make a game of it and have some fun. Create Bingo cards with your different desserts and drinks on the squares and have them cover each one they sell. Hand out prizes for each bingo, covering the four corners and black-out. This is just one example but their are many ways to keep the learning and teaching fun.

For our clients we’ve developed an online “millionaire” style game that allows them to reinforce their service, sales and operational procedures via an online game. It’s a FUN and easy way to connect with today’s workers. Plus it allows you to keep track of who is doing the learning.

To see an example of the millionaire game click here. Don’t forget to use your lifelines!

Training your staff and reinforcing that learning shouldn’t always be about eating your vegetables, it should also be about having fun. And trust me, a staff that is having fun will firm up your bottom line!

Imagine this scenario. A couple walks into your restaurant for their first visit and the man tells the hostess that today is his wife’s birthday and he would like a romantic table for two.

They get seated, the waiter quickly greets them and the rest of the meal runs very smoothly (because your staff is properly trained with 4 Remarkable Service resources ). The couple leaves happy, the waiter is happy (nice tip), and the restaurant owner is happy. Life is grand.

But wait a minute. Now the restaurant has a problem. They have to hope that this first time customer will come back. And they are not doing one thing to ensure that happens. And as we all know, hope is not a plan.

Email Marketing to the rescue!

To turn “hope” into a plan lets replay a part of the last section of the service cycle, Check and Farewell. When the server presents the check, he should also present an eclub signup card and say something like:

“We would love for you to become a member of our eClub. You’ll get a free gift emailed to you if you fill out this card and if you include your birthday information we’ll send an email a few days before the date with a gift. And of course we don’t sell or share your information”.

Now that’s a plan! Your sales force (wait staff) is helping you to build an email marketing database that you will then use to increase the frequency of your guests visits by sending them email communications.

I call this touch marketing because what you are really trying to do is to stay in touch with your customers. Todays customers have alot of choices when it comes to eating out and you want to make sure your restaurant is fresh in their mind so they consider your establishment when making a decision on where to eat. Touch marketing!

I love email marketing for 3 reasons. It is: 

1.) Targeted - In this scenario we’re only collecting emails of people who have dined in your establishment. You already have a relationship with this list and your best customers are repeat customers.

2.) Timely - Anything you send will be timely. Whether it’s information about upcoming entertainment or happenings, holiday hours and specials or birthday club emails, they are getting information they can use.

3.) Cheap - Compared to direct mail campaigns or advertising in other forms of media, email marketing is very inexpensive.

Once your staff starts building a customer list you will need a tool to communicate with that list. That conversation is outside the lines of what we talk about in Service Talk but please visit our Remarkable Buzz website for more information on a great email marketing system. 

—————————-

If you are interested in learning more about email marketing, go to the contact page and fill out the information form. We’ll have a conversation about how email marketing can help your restaurant.

With a little training and help from your service team, you can start an incredibly successful email marketing program today!

I was playing UNO over the weekend with my 4 year old daughter. I “let” her win a couple of hands (I had lousy cards ) and then I finally snapped my losing streak and won a hand, which went over like a lead balloon. She started crying “I want to win”. It’s hard to teach the losing graciously life lesson to a 4 year old.

It’s hard for me to teach because I want her to lose graciously…but I don’t want her to like losing. I want her to grow up with a big competitive spirit. The kind of competitive spirit you need to be successful at running a restaurant!

I can’t think of another segment of the business world that has as much competition as the restaurant industry. That’s why when I’m working with an owner and he says “I want to beat my competition” I always talk about 4 things.

4 keys to beating the competition.

1. Know your enemy.

In the ancient words of author Sun Tzu (”The Art of War”) , you must “Know your enemy as you know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.”

In today’s world I hope you look upon your competition in a friendlier light then Tzu did but the message still holds true. It is extreamly important to know the details of your competitors.

Go eat at their establishments and find out for yourself how their food tastes, what their service standards are and what their marketing message is. My advice, make sure your food is as good and your service is better. If your service isn’t better, call me!

2. Market your specialty.

Once you know everything about your competition you can identify what it is you offer that is unique or special. So what do you do if you don’t have anything that makes you unique or special…you get it! When a guest aks their waiter “what makes this restaurant special”, or “what’s your specialty here”, they need something to talk about.

Once that specialty is defined you can build your marketing message and spread the word with the help of your sales, I mean service, team.

3. Tune in your customers.

If you want to be competitve you have to give your guests what they want while keeping in mind their wants may change quickly. Of course we all know they want great service but there are other things as well.

For instance, if a large percentage of your lunch comes from a business that just implemented a strict lunch hour you need to make sure your staff understands that those guests need to get in and out in under 1 hour. If you are noticing people aren’t ordering as much chicken because of the bird-flu scare then run beef specials.

If you really want to know what your customers want then ask. Say something like this: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about my restaurant what would it be?

4. Touch your guests.

In any business, complacency is the enemy. If the owner, general manager and service team aren’t continually working the floor, thanking the guests for their business and asking them to come back, you can be sure your competitors are. People like to eat out at places where they feel welcome, special and important. So make this a top priority in your restaurant.

Setting up an ongoing marketing program that “touches” your customers is a great tool to build your business as well. Next month I’m going to talk about how your service team can help you build an increadibly successful email marketing program that will help you crush your competition! 

——- 

Crush the competition! Ok maybe that’s a little melodramatic but by following these 4 keys you will come out ahead. Now if I can just figure out a way to beat my kid at UNO…