Best Practices
Dining Dynamics: THE Equation for EXCEPTIONAL Restaurant Customer Service
A customer walking into your restaurant craves two things from your staff: competent service and caring hospitality. Service is the technical delivery of a product and includes timing, accuracy, and efficiency. The focus is on completing tasks and meeting basic guest expectations. If executed well, guests will most likely leave satisfied. Satisfaction though doesn’t create delight; it doesn’t give it that “WOW” factor – this is where hospitality comes into play.
Hospitality is about the emotional response produced by the delivery of a product. The focus is on building relationships with guests. Hospitality done well creates positive feelings such as joy and delight. BIG difference!
BOTH hospitality and service are ESSENTIAL for creating an exceptional restaurant customer service experience. At RestaurantOwner.com, we took these two guest expectations and created a simple success formula. Competent Service + Caring Hospitality = Delight. Training your team in these two areas is essential. Guests have too many options to choose from to become loyal to a restaurant that just leaves them satisfied.
Building on the foundation of customer service, restaurant hospitality is where the magic happens and is where your competitive advantage lies. No one has a team identical to yours, therefore no one can duplicate what your team has to offer concerning that personal touch customers today crave.
Service is what you do for guests. Hospitality is how you make them feel doing it.
- Danny Meyer
Most operators intuitively understand the distinction between service and hospitality but incorporate a game plan into their onboarding or even ongoing training. It’s natural to focus on what needs to get done and not how guests should feel as we serve them. Here is a basic action plan to ensure your restaurant team is delivering on all aspects of the customer service equation:
- Define it. First, make sure everyone on your team understands the difference between service and hospitality. Share this video at the next pre-shift meeting - Service Versus Hospitality: Why Guest Loyalty Depends on BOTH.
- Train it. Continuous training is vital for supporting improvements in customer service. Implement systems to guarantee consistent guest experiences regardless of the staff member. A great system to get started with is the 10-4 Rule. This will instantly give your restaurant’s hospitality level a boost.
- Encourage it. Positive behaviors that get acknowledged are the ones that are often repeated. Celebrate and give a high five of encouragement to employees who are taking the initiative to elevate the guest experience. Share The Power of Recognition: Keep Your Team Engaged with your management team to get ideas on how to keep the energy up!
Regardless of which team member engages with guests, improving their ability to deliver warm, genuine hospitality on top of competent service will have a positive impact on your guest experience and ability to create more loyal, repeat guests. With some focus, you and your team will begin to see that the opportunities to express genuine, exceptional restaurant customer service are endless AND priceless!
Craving more restaurant customer service and hospitality best practices to implement in your operation? Sign up for our online course The Gift of Hospitality and read A Culture of Service... The Foundation of a Great Guest Experience to continue creating memorable dining experiences for your customers.
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Webinar/Podcast
Exceptional Customer Service: Practical Ways to Boost Guest Delight & Increase Loyalty
Our goal is to give your team valuable insights they can use to consistently deliver memorable dining experiences for their guests in a way that creates delight, establishes loyalty, and drives higher sales!
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Training Video
Service Versus Hospitality: Why Guest Loyalty Depends on BOTH
There's a big difference between service and hospitality. Your guests expect to get good service, and even exceptional, world-class service will only impact your guests up to a certain point.
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Training Video
Food Runner Best Practices: 5 Ways to Raise the Bar on Service & Hospitality
In a busy restaurant, food runners are a key part of ensuring that guests get their food quickly, while it's still hot and fresh. It's easy to mistake the role as not much more than delivering food, but it has a much larger impact on guests than it may first appear. The fact is, a food runner can make ...
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Online Course
Delighting Guests with Personalized Hospitality
Have you ever wished you could read a guest's mind? Ever wonder why certain guests are so hard to connect with, while with others it's a breeze? We may not be able to read our every guest's thought, but we sure can come close. Guests are constantly leaving little clues about the type of customer ...
