Restaurants are built on 2 major principles: serve great food and give smashing service. Problem is, many restaurant owners fail to have the time to chart out what specifically they want their service to look and feel like or invest the funds to create a solid service program.

When things start to get off track, sales slump, and Yelp reviews go increasingly worse, that's oftentimes when people at the top brainstorm to wonder what they need to practise. When things are going wrong with a business, many promise they can find a quick prepare to a bigger operational problem.

It doesn't matter if yous are about to open a restaurant or have been up and running for years, asking for assistance from a hospitality consultant like tin can definitely speed up the process and make a positive impact on your bottom line (just ask my clients!). But beyond a shot in the arm from an inspiring workshop or coaching session, restaurant owners and managers need to accept a long-term commitment to working hard on daily maintenance of hospitality principles with their staff.

10 things you can do to improve service

Here are the superlative 10 things I suggest restaurant leaders consider when wanting to improve their customer service and hospitality programs.

1. Go clear on what great service looks similar for your restaurant and write it downwardly.

Many restaurants operate without service training guidelines or employee handbooks that include service guidelines. Though having a service transmission for a small café or mom and pop restaurant may seem unnecessary, keep this in mine: a eating place without a service handbook is like a football game squad without a set of plays.

A thorough manual that states clear service goals, steps of service, and operation expectations is integral in the teaching process of instilling a consistent philosophy of service.

If you don't write down what yous want from your staff, your goals and expectations are unclear. If y'all have always thought "they should know what their task is," yous are experiencing proof that the people who work for yous probably don't know what'southward expected of them.

Employees who aren't given clear guidelines or summit priorities for their task position are left to assume what is expected of them based on their past experiences.  Even though the concept of waiting tables is very familiar, how a corner café defines the position is much different from the four-star, fine dining Italian eatery. Assuming that people know what their jobs should be is a recipe for bad service.

2. Give your squad the tools that they demand.

Look, every restaurant runs out of inventory items. But a eatery that consistently operates without basic tools is a restaurant with large problems on the horizon. A restaurant without enough silverware, plates, glassware, or food and drink inventories volition go on to feel decreased sales, sloppy performance, increased risk of wellness department violations, theft, and poor training of new hires and current employees.

When employees don't have the tools that they need to requite bully service, they are forced to cutting corners, lie or make excuses to guests, and piece of work twice as hard for decreasing results. The staff of a restaurant without a consistent inventory loses faith in the system and forces them to stop caring well-nigh being professional person at their chore.

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iii. Not bad Service Doesn't Happen Overnight. At that place are no fast fixes.

Building a culture of hospitality isn't something that just happens right away. Pep talks and impassioned speeches help, only not if goals and encouragement is offered once a year or once a quarter.

If you make up one's mind to invest in getting help from a hospitality consultant similar me who tin inspire your team and become them heading onto the right path of service, you will still demand to continue up with daily maintenance of your service staff.

Smashing hospitality is grown in an arrangement and nurtured over time. Nothing in service is ever "fixed". Simply similar weeds, service issues popular up over and over once again. That's why you need to:

4. Teach Service Every Day.

It's important to lead and inspire your staff to focus on and improve operation issues on a daily basis. Some managers believe if they write a memo almost service concerns and postal service it on the employee bulletin board, they take effectively communicated service expectations.  Unfortunately, single missives are not enough to enforce service goals. But because something is covered in one case in a pre-shift coming together or put in a memo doesn't mean that service issues will be immediately resolved.

Great service is grown; hospitality requires daily attending and coaching.

When you work to improve a particular surface area of service you tin can expect a slow and steady change to occur. But even after that surface area of service is improved it will need to exist revisited and nurtured. If you stop focusing on that area of service, within a few months you lot volition notice that the problem has returned. Call up, information technology takes 21 days to create a habit, and probably about 21 days to slip back into an erstwhile one.

5. Hire people with a heart for hospitality

When hiring, try looking beyond the resume for great people. Experience is swell, simply a heart for hospitality can exist even more important than a specific amount of experience in a like restaurant to yours. Be willing to let go of pre-conceived notions most what makes a great employee (specific number of years in a particular position, prior experience at like type of restaurant) and stay open to the passionate folks and people with a deep-rooted ability to deliver kind and generous service. Bones job requirements can be taught. Having a heart for hospitality is something that's inside the individual and in their internal wiring.

Some of the best employees I have ever hired came to me with resumes that weren't "perfect" but had big hearts, tons of passion, determination to learn, commitment, and an innate kindness that resulted in extraordinary service.

vi. Write out a training plan and expectations for every position at your eating place.

When employees train one another without any clear guidelines, the results are often less than stellar. When employees train other employees without guidelines, a kind of service folklore is adult and the training constantly changes.

7. Requite great service to your staff and so your staff tin give great service to your guests

When employees know what is expected of them, have what they need to practise their jobs, and experience their managers have their back, staff volition commit to nearly anything a business is trying to accomplish. A culture of hospitality thrives in a workplace where the staff feels appreciated and supported.  Hospitality dies in a civilization of fright.

Information technology's difficult to give groovy service when you are constantly being yelled at or berated. If you are looking to amend sales and staff memory, consider leading with kindness rather than with frustration and anger. When staff fears an angry tirade, the cold shoulder, or passive aggressive comments from their leaders it becomes very hard to maintain a center of hospitality. Fearfulness breeds mistrust and kills teamwork.

Have a look at how you pb your squad. Do yous lead through encouragement or through negative feedback? Robert Greenleaf, the concern thinker who popularized the philosophy of the servant leadership wrote, "If in that location is a flaw in the world to be fixed, it must first inside the leader."

eight. Advantage your team for slap-up performance. Create an employee rewards plan.

If yous are looking for means to innovate or uplift your service program, showtime by getting creative with how you motivate your staff.  Successful food businesses like Starbucks, Chipotle, Zingerman'south, Milkshake Shack and any of Danny Meyer'due south other restaurants, have developed ways to inspire their teams to do more than just bring in a paycheck. They accept invested time and attempt in treating their employees like they are their customers, which in plough makes employees care so much about their work, they act equally if they were partners in the business concern.

Many eating house owners and managers believe that employment and tip money coming in is advantage enough for their front of house staff. Though many of these businesses do succeed, employees who are treated like replaceable bolt act like replaceable widgets.

Asking your staff to hit sales goals is ane way of measuring improvements, but it does non reply the question "What's in it for me?"

A pat on the back, service support, and kind words go a long way with staff, but what goes even further is kindness and generosity.  Go creative. One restaurant I worked for gave gift certificates and frequent flier miles to staff members who racked up a significant number of unsolicited compliments from guests. Set up a gift card substitution with neighboring businesses. Not only will you improve your employee's morale, merely you will also begin a bully conversation well-nigh rewarding your staff'due south operation with other neighboring businesses and amend your restaurant'due south influence on your community.

9. Empower your team to become the extra mile for guests.

Encourage and back up your team to recognize service opportunities and requite them the tools they need to make a difference with guests. Organizations that build trust and respect with their employees have the rare opportunity to create extraordinary experiences for guests and to build customers for life.

When you teach your squad basic parameters of what "going the extra mile" means for your business, y'all can let your staff get creative, be trouble solvers, and make a positive bear upon on your business.

10.  Get Inspired. Share your inspiration.

Be a pupil of great service. Get out to dinner at a fiddling hole-in-the-wall or a big restaurant. Have notes equally you experience their service styles. Store at stores that offer bully service. What aspects of service worked for you? What style points could you learn from? What moments of cracking hospitality can you lot share with your staff and duplicate at your ain restaurant?

Though there are plenty of things that restaurant owners and managers can exercise to improve the hospitality programs of their eatery and turn bad customer reviews around, in that location aren't quick fixes. Hospitality must be something that'southward developed and nurtured over fourth dimension.

Equally a restaurant consultant I help speed the process up of improving customer service. However, no matter how good a consultant or eating house managing director is, customer service problems accept time to resolve. Commitment, passion, and patience are all essential in growing and nurturing great service in your business.

For more information about my restaurant consulting practice, feel free to email me at Brooke <at> foodwoolf.com.