Service and hospitality terms confuse so many managers over the years. Surprisingly very few understand the concept of the difference between Service and Hospitality.
Service
Service is what you do – It is a sequence of acts, tasks, and procedures. If done with consistency, should satisfy most customers when they visit your restaurant. Most go
od establishments will have some sort of written sequence of service in place.
Hospitality
It is your secret weapon this is how restaurants rise above the boring routine. In its barest form – it is the ability to make an emotional connection with your guest.
In venues across the world. Some restaurants make a serious effort into the design and with some stunning results but lack hospitality. On the other side, many restaurants don’t have the best venue but they are consistently busy. A magic element that can elevate your establishment to new levels of return guests is “Hospitality”
How do venues ensure their people offer great hospitality?
First; recruit well, spend time and effort selecting your staff. As the great restaurant legend Jim Sullivan says “Hire Slow, Fire Fast”. It should also be noted that most of the team had little restaurant experience. Only a great team will have the potential to make the venue so popular with guests. It is possible only by spending much time in recruiting and interviewing employees.
Training:
Can you train hospitality? yes, quite simply this is where you will conquer other restaurants if executed correctly. It has to be daily, it has to be a passion for the whole management team. Training comes in all shapes and formats – It can be 2-minute quick fire sessions, 10-minute focus sessions when you are quiet – part of your Pre-shift briefing of a classroom style session. Regardless of the method first, it has to be planned and scheduled. So many restaurant operators let their team interact with guests with very little training. Treat your guests as the fire and don’t let your team lose on them until they have been trained thoroughly.
Methods to develop hospitality-
We have many methods to drill Hospitality into my teams – There are literally thousands you can try – but to develop your team here are a few to get you started:
- Read books on hospitality and restaurant management.
- Role plays – set up situations of conversational service, video them and then ask the team how they could improve the emotional connection if they had to do it again.
- Incentivize the team to achieve a connection with the guests -Try and incentivize the team to achieve social media mentions or Yelp mentioning their name, etc. It all helps to push the team and increase your social marketing.
- Be hospitable with your team – treat your team like trash and that will cascade in some way to your guests – Our industry is notorious for its monster managers – but ultimately it will be the guest that suffers so apart from being, simply, the human thing to do – being hospitable to your team is good business sense.
While service is no doubt important – I tend to look at it as the foundation of hospitality and that Hospitality is the magic aspect that brings guest back time and time again. If you take the time and effort to invest in your people and develop their ability to connect with guests, your business has the potential to flourish.
“Hospitality exists when you believe that the other person is on your side “- Danny Meyer
Thus service and hospitality can help you in making financial decisions and improves your productivity and helps to achieve financial independence and early retirement.
What are your ways to provide hospitality to guests?
If you need more tips on financial independence and early retirement or investing in real estate, call Raj now, at 720 5151051 for professional assistance.
Photo by unsplash.