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Restaurant Customer Service Article

By November 5, 2019 No Comments
How to Earn More Dollars with Customer Service. Learn why customer service is important to your restaurant business. Customer service training on how to generate more customers.

Restaurant Customer Service Article.  

Customer Complaints.

Every restaurant handles complaints in all shapes and forms.  Provide unsatisfactory restaurant customer service and your customers will inform seven or more associates.  Provide great service and they will tell three or four.  So your complaint handling strategy is imperative to protecting your restaurant from poor publicity.

Handling restaurant customer complaints is a notoriously difficult task.  Diners can be described as emotional beings that can be dissatisfied with even the best-prepared meal and the most efficient service.  You can train your staff to handle these situations, minimise damage to your reputation and even turn the situation around.

Prevention is often better than a cure

Serving staff must be very aware of their customers and should be trained to observe them throughout the meal so that they can anticipate and correct speedily.  For example, if a customer is served a steak meal and looks searching across the table, you can often see that the steak knife was forgotten and a replacement can be on the table before the customer begins to ask for the missing silverware.

Empower the staff

If a customer does express dissatisfaction, empower the serving staff to fix the problem using predetermined measures the staff can prescribe.  You can brainstorm these solutions with the team during your regular staff meetings and in particular, include the kitchen staff so that the team as a whole has an appreciation and understanding of dealing with complaints.

By providing your staff with a range of solutions that they can use in any situation which arises, you are then empowering your staff to resolve the complaints swiftly and with the least interruption to the shifts trading.

Common and frequent complaints such as slow service and incorrect food/drink orders should be addressed in these meetings.  When I say addressed I mean in two ways.  The first being identifying the cause of these ongoing complaints and resolving the front or back of house issues to thus prevent future complaints.  The second is, in the unfortunate event that a complaint is voiced, that the staff is equipped and confident to resolve not only to the satisfaction of the diner but beyond their expectation to turn the situation into an opportunity to impress.

Be swift

Provide some time guidelines so that issues are resolved in a timely manner if a problem cannot be resolved say in 3 minutes then the server should refer the matter onto the manager who must attend to it immediately.  If a customer has subsequent problems then the issues are perceived to be multiplying and compounding and your business will then be reflected negatively.  You must work quickly to avoid this perception by resolving the issues swiftly and beyond the expectation of the customer.  This is the difference between responding and being pro-active and leaving a lasting positive impression.

The customer is always right

Never argue with a customer even if it appears you are correct.  The old adage that the customer is always right should hold true to all businesses.  The way you handle the situation will make or break the outcome.  Educate your staff appropriately on customer relation tactics and your business is bound to reap the benefits.

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