A New Restaurant

While it’s a restaurant owner or manager’s job to point out areas that need improvement, it is possible to carry that too far.  If you go overboard pointing out what is wrong with your restaurant, you run the risk of your employees tuning out your comments.  They hear you say the same things every day, and your words begin to loose their impact.  The trick is to get your staff to start to find these weaknesses on their own, and come up with ways to correct the problems.

Last week I wrote about looking at your restaurant from the customer’s point of view, and seeing your operation with “new eyes”.  It’s helpful to get your employees to look at the restaurant from a customer’s point of view as well.

One great exercise for improving customer service is to challenge your staff to come up with a list of 10 reasons your customers might leave and not return.  There are two ways to do this, you could do it as a group brainstorming exercise, or you could have each employee do it from their own personal point of view.  If you go a step further and allow them to turn in their list anonymously, you will find some very interesting answers.

Everyone looks at his or her job from a different perspective.  Different personalities and different jobs within the restaurant cause us to form differing opinions on many issues.  Your cooks will see things much differently form the server.  You might look across the same dining room as your hostess and see a very different set of issues.  By tapping into those varied perspectives, you can gain a lot of insight into what is really happing inside your restaurant.

A word of warning about this; expect some brutally honest answers.  Your staff be able to come up with some areas in your restaurants operation that you may have missed.  There may be some parts of your operation that you are in love with, but your staff and customers don’t think are such a great idea.  They may also point out some areas where you are the problem.  Get ready to face some criticism with an open mind, and to do a little self-examination.

Great customer service is such a critical piece in the successful operation of your restaurant that you absolutely have to find a way to get your staff involved.  There are only so many things an owner or manager can do.  Customer service may start at the top, but it’s your employees that will show it to the customers.