Author :chef ssentongo Geoffrey
Blog : Customer Service Issues in the Restaurant Industry
Restaurant owners offer customers a chance to escape the chores of making up afterwards. Dinners usually anticipate an experience that makes them feel their visit was worth their effort and expense.
If you’re running a restaurant, make sure you are aware of all the customer service issues–good and bad – – and address them promptly and completely.
THE FIRST IMPRESSION
Hire hosts and hostesses who will make your guests feel welcome as soon as they walk into your restaurant by greeting them and informing them how long they may have to wait. Once seating is available, your host ore hostess should guide your customers to their seats, letting them know their server will be.
POSITIVE AND PROMPT SERVICE
Prompt and courteous service in the restaurant industry is critical to your establishments success and your reputation. Train your serving staff to treat the restaurants guests with the treatment they expect when out for a night of fun spending their hard-earned pay.
COURSE CORRECTIONS
Correcting mistakes in your restaurant is critical. If food is late making it to the table, or if one of your servers picks up the wrong order and delivers it by mistake, you and your staff should politely and quickly make the correction.
Most of the time, customers appreciate your honesty and willingness to take care of their order.
NEAT, CLEAN, SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE
Customers want to eat in a clean, safe and well-kept establishment, so make sure you consistently attend to this critical part of customer service.
WHAT IS ENTAILED IN RESTAURANT OPERATIONS?
Restaurant Operations are about much more than food. Successful restaurants design operations aimed at pleasing customers, making a profit and avoiding potential crises such as food poisoning.
PURCHASING
A restaurant must have inventory on hand to prepare menu items that customers order. Stocking a restaurant kitchen can be a tricky dance. On the one hand, you need to have ingredients available to prepare every item on your menu, even if nobody has ordered it for a week.
PREPARATION
Restaurant food preparation operations involve developing systems for cooking and serving each item on the menu, and also making changes and adaptations for special requests or allergies.
SERVICE
Successful restaurant service involves attentiveness as well as cognizance of customers’ boundaries. A hostess should greet customers as soon as they arrive and seat them as soon as possible and servers should aim for standards regarding timing to take drinks orders and then follow up with subsequent parts of the service routine.
THE TYPES OF RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES
For an eating establishment to run properly, serverl types of restaurant employees are required. Although the number of employees can vary based on the type and size of restaurant, the general type of employees remains consistent.
MANAGEMENT
A chain of restaurants or a franchise can have a general manager to oversee the operation and ensure the quality of food is consistent throughout the restaurants, while a smaller restaurant can have a manager with the same job.
CHEF
All restaurants require a person in charge of cooking the food. In a fine restaurant, this person is the head chef, while in a fast-food chain, it may be the head cook.
The chef normally has more in-depth duties as a fine restaurant contains many courses requiring additional kitchen help, such as pastry or sous chefs. Both restaurants require kitchen staff.
MISCELLANEOUS
Two final employees in the restaurant chain are the cashier and the delivery person. As some restaurants deliver food to your door, the delivery driver is responsible to ensure the correct order is picked up and delivered to the right location.
RESTAURANT CUSTOMER SERVICE GUIDELINES
A restaurant is a service business that thrives on the referrals of satisfied customers. Those customers are satisfied by what they perceive as good food, reasonable pricing and high levels of service.
Creating a memorable experience for clients is the responsibility of every employee in a restaurant, and all need to be trained on good restaurant customer service guidelines.
PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE
The entire staff needs to have a professional attitude with each customer from the moment that customer walks through the door.
PROMPTNESS
Customers at a restaurant, unlike many other services businesses, are on a time table. They are hungry when they arrive, and the longer they are forced to wait to eat, the worse the experience gets for them. By the same token, when a restaurant customer is done, she wants to receive the bill in a timely manner.
SUGGESTIONS
Making suggestions on the menu items and the specials of the day serves several purposes. It informs customers of any specials may appeal to them that may not be on the menu.
DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS
Restaurant personnel will, at some point, come into contact with dissatisfied customers for one reason or another. Some customers may not find the service prompt enough, while others may find the quality of food discouraging.
Bring dissatisfied customers to the attention of management.
SUPERVISOR
The supervisor ensures that the wait staff and cooking staff complete tasks in a timely manner. He handles any problems that arise during the process.
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