A Must Read on Customer Service.

I just read a blog post by Aaron D. Allen. If you own or manage a restaurant I highly suggest your read it through. It's a bit long but very much worth the read. He covers issues from how social media can immediately impact you to how complacency and arrogance can affect your view of customers.

What Le Bernadin Can Teach Us About Bad Service

One of America’s Top 50 Restaurants turns away customers seeking a $55 lunch over a $3 cup of Starbucks tea and in so doing offers many lessons in what not to do.

In his section titled, "So, what can a top 50 restaurant teach us about bad service?", he has a list of eight things you should pay close attention too.

Cool Kitchen Tool and a Stock of Reputation.

I came across a couple of posts on this thing called the Internet that I think are worth making note of today.

The first is this cool little package from Innovative Technologies by Design. It's nifty a little device for labeling your food prep list.

Check it out. You might find it useful in your restaurant.

The other thing that I came across was a worthy article by Ragsdale Hendrie: Fully Stock Your 'Reputation' Toolbox.

You define what you are through your marketing and delivery on service, product and facility. The marketplace validates your performance. Their report card is your reputation – good, bad or indifferent. Thus, it boils down to how you can influence and leverage that reputation with what you have learned and how you respond to that insight. And, there are “tools” out there to give you the advantage.

I hope your week is looking good. I know much of us are experiencing some unseasonably cold weather. You might consider just how you could capitalize upon that fact. Perhaps a special marketing campaign touting a freeze busting meal.

Until next time.

When you think about customer service, what do you hear?

Running a restaurant is demanding.

And gaining and maintaining regular guests is hard.

Aside from great food, one of the ways you capture those guests is through exceptional customer service.

But when you think about your customer service do you think about sound?

More specifically the sound of noise.

I've been to a lot of restaurants throughout my life so far, from the hole in the wall fifteen blocks east of here to the type of restaurant where they don't feel it necessary to put prices on the menu's (if you have to ask you can't... well you know.)

In all of those restaurants noise can be a positive or negative factor. It can add to the ambiance, like water babbling in a fountain, or it can detract from the ambiance, like a dentist's drill on one of your molars.

That kind of noise can drive a customer off.

In and article from last year in The Washington Post from Tom Sietsema, No Appetite for Noise, the tag line is:

The No. 1 complaint of restaurant-goers in the Washington area isn't the service, or even the dinner. It's the din

The Number One Complaint.

That's pretty bad.

In a more recent article by Ray Kelly in Masslive.com, Dealing with noisy restaurants, he writes:

Apart from the issue of too-loud music, excessive restaurant clatter can result from poor design choices.

Sound that becomes noise, that irritating stuff that grates on us, can seem to reflect an unconscious air of disdain really. That may not be what you think and certainly probably is not what you want to come across to your guests. But in the mind of the guest it says,"They really don't care a whole lot about my experience here."

This YouTube video is a perfect example where noise is very specifically tied to poor customer service.



So take an opportunity to listen in your restaurant. What noises do you hear? When the place is full during a dinner rush, can you hold a conversation without having to use a voice you would use to call across a ball field?

If the din is too great find a way to change that because you will be serving the customer by making them comfortable and they will in turn want to come back again.

And remember, with SellMoreMeals.com you can connect with those guests outside those four walls and let them know how much you appreciate them.

Those elements which make or break a restaurant.

Here's a couple of links to some items that are well worth your reading time in the quest for success in the restaurant biz. They are the kind of times that give you some good thought food.

The first article is from the Restaurant News Resource:

Convenience still top order for younger diners

Over half of younger adults rank a restaurant's proximity to their workplace as very important/important when selecting where to dine (62% of 25-34s and 55% of 18-24s, versus 41% of all respondents). The ability to order online ahead of time is also essential to young, time-strapped consumers (31% of 25-34s and 24% of 18-24s, versus 19% overall). The younger demographics also rank extended hours (i.e. late-night) and speed of service highly in their restaurant selection processes.

That's something worth thinking about as you seek to market to your area. Those age groups are greatly attached to all things electronic.

This second post is from a blog on The New York Times and it's a wonderful read:

The Four Basic Elements of Dining (and Umami, too)

The first paragraph caught my attention right away as I couldn't agree more:

“If someone likes a restaurant, just enjoys being in that space, say no more, the game has been won.” That’s a chef talking, a highly acclaimed young New York City gastro-turk.

The four elements which Bush Buschel lists as key to any restaurant's success (or failure) are:

I was sitting at a table full of food and foodies, and the discussion was all about, well, you know. You are listening to it. I steered the conversation in this direction in an attempt — as I prepare to open my own restaurant — to prioritize the Four Basic Elements (in alphabetical order): ambience, food, price, service.

He goes on to note that there is one more element and that is Umami.

Umami is the fifth flavor in food, the untranslatable Japanese word that means “delicious” or “pungent” or “essence” or “gimme more.”

That fifth element I would propose is not so much and element as the sum of those four elements properly attuned with a the right dash of "human element."

Those four elements are so special because of the fingerprints (ie the human element) upon them which is the seasoning if you will. Once combined, you have Umami.

And that is what keeps us coming back for more. Well, that and a bit of convenience as well ;-)