Great Service
Filed under: Restaurant Marketing, Restaurant Marketing Strategies, Restaurant Profit, Restaurant Sales, restaurant advertising, restaurant consulting, restaurant management | Tags: restaurant ads, restaurant advertising, Restaurant Marketing, restaurant plan, Restaurant Sales, restaurant service
Leave a Comment What constitutes great service when you go to a restaurant?
This is one of these things that are difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it, or better yet, when you experience it.
Some times we go to a restaurant where the service is so obviously poor that there is no question about it: long delays, rude or inattentive waiters, mistakes with the food or drinks orders that don’t get compensated, apologized, etc.
We know that it has been poor service and we can totally account and
However, other times, although everything seems OK, we have the impression that something is missing. Yes, the waiters were on time and yes, they delivered the food and drinks that we ordered in a reasonable time and yet, however, something is missing: I will call it the WOW factor.
You see? We humans are very tuned, although many times, in a subconscious level, to the feelings and moods of other people. If a waiter is unhappy, or just has a bad day, you will notice. That mood, that unhappiness will be transmitted to the people who their customers.
The reverse is also true. A happy, sincerely smiling waiter, transmits their happiness to their clients, chatting with them and making them feel good. It doesn’t matter that much if they make a mistake or forget some food item because their tables will feel connected with them and understand and forgive their mistakes.
This seems unfair, after all, every person has the right to be moody or unhappy. So how does the waiters mood or disposition relate to the restaurant owners or managers? What can you do if they have unhappy faces or unhappy lives?
Well, to start with, many of the unhappiness of your employees could probably be related to your work environment.
You should ask yourself. Are your employees happy to work for your restaurant? Happy to work for you? If you try to squeeze as much as you can from them, they will resent you and transmit this resentment to their tables, to your clients!
I mention in my online seminar that the quality of your restaurant is as good as the quality of your weakest link. If your employees are not happy working for you, your clients will suffer the consequences.
I am not saying that you need to bend backwards to please your employees. After all, they are also human and therefore always want the best for themselves, even if they are not being fair with their fellow coworkers.
What I am saying is that you should provide your employees with the best work environment that you can (of course while still running a profitable business). Trying to take advantage of your employees by having unreasonable working hours, treating them with disrespect, paying them late, etc. will make them unhappy and will make you lose a lot of money in the long term with your clients.
Happy employees make happy clients. Period.
Thanks for reading and happy sailing,
Jose L Riesco
jose@riescoconsulting.com
www.myrestaurantmarketing.com
Copyright Riesco Consulting Inc.
My Restaurant Marketing Strategies Book is for Sale in Amazon Now
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Today was a very intense day.
First, I had a very interesting interview/conversation with Jenna Lloyd. She is an online marketing consultant and copywriter who just launched a very interesting offer for restaurant owners and managers. It is is called My Internet Manager and it is basically a hands off approach to online marketing aimed to restaurant owners and managers.
So we talk for 1 hour and 15 minutes about online marketing, how to use social media to promote your restaurant and know what people are talking about your business, etc.
You can listen for free to the complete audio interview here: http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com/Audio/JennaLloydInterview.html
At the end of the recording, she made a very generous offer to all my readers. You can find more information about her product and a very generous discount offer here: www.myinternetmanager.com/Jose
If you would like to subscribe to her restaurant online marketing offering, you can enter the following discount code (when you are in the shopping cart): 88F8D2 and you’ll receive a discount of $200!!
But that’s not all; while I was talking to Jenna, the UPS truck came and dropped off 30 author copies of my new Restaurant Marketing Strategies book. To my surprise, a friend told me that it is already available in Amazon. com and Barnes & Noble online.
You can find (and hopefully purchase) the book here:
and here:
The book came out pretty good. It contains really valuable and logical marketing strategies to help you improve your restaurant marketing (and business!). Check it out.
Now, I need a rest to enjoy the long (and rainy) weekend.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
How much should you invest to market your restaurant?
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As a restaurant marketing and consulting expert, I get often this question: How much should an independent restaurant spend in marketing? The answer is… it depends. There is not a hard rule or fixed amount that a restaurateur must expend.
When I bought my first restaurant, I remember that the previous owner told me “You should invest at least 10% of your gross income in marketing if you want to be successful.” So for a while I complied. Although 10% sounded very high to me, I knew nothing about the restaurant industry so whom was I to question the opinion of an expert restaurateur?
Very soon, however, I started realizing that I was wasting my money in marketing vehicles that just didn’t work (many inherited from him). After lots of trial and error, I reduced the amount that I was expending in marketing; but even more important, I started investing in marketing that worked and brought me lots of customers.
So, let me ask you this question. Would you invest $1,000 in marketing if I told you that it will bring you $2,000 in profits? Of course you would, it would be silly no to.
However, many times, when I recommend some marketing investments to restaurateurs, they complain that they are expensive and can’t afford them; even if I tell them that they will bring back many times their investment. This is specially true when these marketing investments are not the usual ads, flyers, coupons, etc. that restaurateurs are so used to, and love to hate.
Recently, I recommended to my list a great hands-off online marketing package from Online Reputation Management Expert Jenna Lloyd. This new program is specifically designed just for restaurants, nightclubs, and bars.
Yes, the price is $497 per month (soon to be raised to $697 per month), but the idea is that they will take care of everything, from writing newsletter articles customized to the restaurant, to take care of capturing customer’s information, email them with personalized emails, etc. This is a hands off approach.
You can check the details here: www.MyInternetManager.com
After I suggested this online package to my list, I received many emails from restaurateurs complaining that they can’t afford $497 a month. They get the wrong message. It is not a matter of if they can’t afford it or not (they all can, $500 is not that high of a budget for a restaurant), it is about how much more business they will get if they invest this $497 a month!
They (and you) need to start thinking about marketing as an investment. If they get enough extra business to cover for their marketing expenses, then it is just a smart investment. If, on the other hand, after a few months, they see that there is not enough growth in their business brought by the marketing to justify the expenses, then this investment is obviously not working for them and they should cancel it.
At worst, they will expend only a few hundred dollars. At best they could improve their business dramatically. Isn’t worth it a try?
Oh, and let’s not forget all the hours that restaurateurs will save trying to market their restaurant online. How valuable is their time? Probably quite more than the $497 a month…
So should they cut any of their existing marketing and replace it all by this online system? Again, it depends. If it’s working for them (and they can measure it and track it), then they should keep it. If not, they should just cut it and save their money.
It is as simple as that.
I hope that this blog put some sound ideas about investing wisely in your marketing. I surely hope so.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Dear Restaurateurs: Your Servers Are Your Sales Force, Are You Training Them?
Based onpersonal experience, many restaurateurs underestimate the importance of having servers trained in sales in their restaurant. Although most of the people serving food are pleasant enough, and can do their jobs, the best servers are always also the best sales people. Not only the get the highest tips, but they also increase the restaurant’s profit.
Both, sales and marketing skills are key elements to make any business profitable. Usually (but not always), the restaurant owners and/or managers take the helm of the marketing while most of the sales rest on the shoulders of the servers. And this is probably where the problem lies since often, the servers just learn the operations and dishes. They never get any training in sales.
It happened to me more times that I can think of: I finished a very satisfactory meal just to be presented with the check, before anybody bothered to ask me whether I want dessert, coffee, or perhaps just an after-dinner drink. When a server brings the check, customers usually pay and leave the place, missing extra sales for very little extra effort.
Same thing with the water; offering your client’s mineral (or just bottled) water is an easy upsell that very few servers even consider.
There are many other examples where a trained server can increase the check amount without being pushy or bothering the clients. A client won’t order (or very seldom will take the initiative to do it) an item that doesn’t know of, or it’s not blatantly displayed in the menu. However, many of them will appreciate an informed suggestion by a professional waiter.
Customer engagement is also another important element of the overall dining satisfaction
Don’t underestimate the importance that your servers have in your business? After all, they are the main contact that the customers have with your restaurant. They are your image, your sales force and represent (for good or bad) your restaurant and the opinion that people dinning at your place have about it.
If you are not doing so now, implementing a formalized sales training for your servers should be very high in your priorities list.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
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The Cactus Cowboy Sent Me!
If you noticed that I haven’t posted any blogs lately, you are right, but I have a good excuse.
I’ve just come back from a well deserved 2 weeks vacation. Some friends were visiting us from Spain, and we all went for a 2 weeks road trip. We flew from Seattle to Las Vegas, rented a van and visited Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and Los Angeles (from where we flew back to Seattle).
In one of the many motels where we slept in Arizona, I found a brochure in the room with advertising of local businesses. One of them was a typical Southern restaurant. What caught my attention waws that they had the following text under the ad:
When you come to our restaurant, mention the following to your server: “The Cactus Cowboy Sent Me!” and you’ll receive a free coffee or dessert.
Now, the symbol of the restaurant is a Cactus dressed as a cowboy swirling a lasso (you can see it in the photo), so this ad somehow makes sense.
Although I would prefer to pay for my coffee than to say something so silly to my server, these people have a good point. They are tracking their marketing expenses. Each time that somebody says this silly sentence, they know that these people saw the paid ad displayed in the brochure. They could have included a coupon instead, but this would mean replacing the ad each time that a customer clipped it to bring it to the restaurant.
By saying a unique sentence like that, they can track the results of the marketing without having to replace the ad each time. It is clever and effective.
So what about you? Do you have a way to track your ads? If not, you should be learning from the Cactus Cowboy. After all, he knows what he is doing.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
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Restaurateurs: Are You Delivering a Consistent Dinning Experience to Your Clients?
One of the main turn-offs for people going to a restaurant is the lack of consistency.
Customers expect predictable results when buying a product or a service. If somebody goes to a restaurant, and has a great dinning experience, they expect to get this same experience every time that they go back to the same restaurant.
And this is often the problem. Since restaurants are heavily relying on people (cooks, servers, bussers, hostesses, etc.), and people have different moods and needs, depending on their personal circumstances, delivering a consistently excellent experience is both difficult and challenging.
If these people get temperamental servers, wrong cooked food, or some any other unexpected results, they will leave the restaurant very disappointed to probably never come back.
Part of the success of restaurant franchises is that they work hard standardizing the processes so that the mistakes get minimized. They have thick operations manuals where they cover each aspect of the process, from receiving the guests to the timing and delivery of food, etc.
So what can you do to minimize randomness and deliver a consistent excellent experience to your clients?
To start, you should have the basic processes defined. From the moment that a prospect or client walks in the door, you should have clear processes to greet them, sit them, and deliver them some water or drinks quickly and efficiently.
Same thing with the flow of the meals; Your waiters or managers should know how long each table has been waiting, when and how to deliver the food, when to check if everything is going well, how to deal with difficult customers, etc.
But, even if you try your best to document every possible situation, you will never be able to cover all the possibilities. People react in unpredictable ways and there are not enough manuals in the world to cover every possible scenario.
The most important training that you must give your staff is a good understanding about what your restaurant is all about: Make crystal clear to them what makes your restaurant different from your competitor’s and why your clients are your number one priority, and also it should be theirs.
You must specify in your operations manual that whatever issue occurs with a client, your staff should never argue with them. Make clear that your staff should do their absolutely best to compensate your customers for whatever incident (despite whom has caused it) that could make them unhappy with your restaurant.
If you have clear policies and rules to deal with problems and clients, you will be able to deliver the consistency that your clients are looking for.
Tomorrow I will be taking a well deserved vacation with my family. I’ll be offline for two weeks so don’t expect any new blogs during that time. 
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Restaurant Long Term Strategy or Short Term Profits?
Here is a fundamental question that restaurateurs need to ask themselves: Do you have a long term strategy for your restaurant or are you just focusing on getting short-term profits?
The answer to this question can have profound implications in the way you manage and operate your business.
For example, if you are just looking for short-term profits, then you don’t have to worry about having clear policies regarding how your staff should deal with customer’s issues. If a customer has a problem, you can take the short-term profit route and just refuse to compensate them if you see that they don’t deserve it. You will get their money instead of making them happy. Who cares if they won’t come back? You don’t want those kind of customers anyway right?
Same thing with your staff; if you want to increase your short-term profits, you will try to discount every single penny that you can from them. If they break something, you will discount it from their tips. If they eat, you will also discount the food, etc.
You will also try to understaff your restaurant so that your fixed costs are minimum and you can survive in these tough economy that we are experiencing and you will cut or eliminate your marketing expenses to a minimum or even zero…
Although this short term vision looks like a good idea in these times of crisis, this is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot in the long run…
People are very sensitive to the way they are treated. And this goes not only for your clients but also for your staff. If you treat people badly (or even not as good as they think they deserve), you are saving pennies and expending dollars. A disgruntled customer will let other 100 people (it was only ten or 12 but now with the Web, it can be hundreds) know about their bad experience in your place. Unhappy employees will do all they can to make you pay from a situation that they believe is unfair. They will be more prone to steal from you and slack as much as they can. The worst part is that your clients will notice that their food has been cooked and/or served by unhappy people.
Saving in marketing is also a sure way to funnel customers to your competitors. All things equal; people will flock to restaurants that bring them incentives to go, and provide them with the emotional experience that they are looking forward to when they go out to eat.
If, on the other hand, you have (or are implementing) a long term strategy for your restaurant, then you already know that people are your main asset. Your clients are the ones bringing you the money, and therefore you should bend backwards to please them. Above all, never ever argue with them; even if this means giving them a free meal and compensating them so that they always leave your place happy and impressed with your service.
Same thing with your staff; if you treat them fairly and even give them an occasional bonus to compensate them for the extra effort that you see they put, they will be very motivated and happy to work for you, and this means that they will transmit their happiness to your clients.
Let’s now talk briefly about your marketing. This is a great time to evaluate how you are spending your marketing dollars. You shouldn’t stop marketing your restaurant, on the contrary, you should use this opportunity to implement efficient and inexpensive marketing vehicles that could bring you repeated clients. Use the power of referrals (you may want to check my Restaurant Referral System in a Box, it’s a very inexpensive and foolproof to bring back your best clients and their friends and families). Also, you should use the power of the Web to promote your business. Online sites like Twitter, Facebook, MetaFlavor, ResOS.net and other can help you spread the word about your place.
Yes, this may mean less cash in hand in the short-term, but you are establishing the foundation for a prosperous business for the long term. If you want your restaurant to succeed, you must create a long term strategy and follow it religiously. Any other action means sacrificing your most valuable assets looking for a short-term solution.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Difficult Times for Restaurants
The NPD Group reports that the U.S. Restaurant Traffic Decline is the Steepest in 28 Years. You can read the complete article here: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/npd-reports-us-restaurant-traffic-decline-steepest-in-28-years,896710.shtml
This is bad news indeed but probably no surprise to anybody who is in this industry since you all can see your restaurants emptier than before.
This also means than competition to attract customers is now fiercer than ever. Less people going out for dinner makes the battle to bring people to your restaurant a more daunting task. To respond to this challenge, many restaurateurs are lowering their prices or issuing discount coupons to entice money-tight customers to go to their restaurants.
Although this marketing technique may work temporarily, I don’t think that it’s really a good strategy for the long run. First, you will attract the cheapest customers looking for the most inexpensive place they can go to eat, despite the quality of their dinning experience. Also, these people won’t become loyal clients. Instead, they will go only to restaurants looking for the bargain of the day, moving to your competitors if their discount is bigger than yours.
So what can you do to attract people to your restaurant?
First, you need to be creative and position your restaurant so that it is unique and different from your competitors. Think for just a moment. Do you have something unique that your restaurant has/offers than nobody else does? This is called a Unique Selling Proposition, and you can use it as a differentiator in the marketplace. People understand that they need to pay a little more to get a unique experience, and even in these times of crisis they are willing to do so.
If you don’t have, or can’t come up with anything unique, then you need to put yourself in the minds of your customers. Why should they go to your restaurant instead of going to your competitors? What can you offer them that makes them want to go to your restaurant? These are key questions that can help you come up with your Unique Selling Proposition.
Once you attract new customers, you need to make their visit worthy. Give them the best dinning experiences that you are able to. Make sure that they receive great food and an impeccable service. Make sure that your place is very clean and inviting and that you treat them so well that they would love to come back to your place looking for those good memories that they’ve shared in your place.
Remember, people go to restaurants looking forward to have a good time. Provide them with a great experience and they will come back. Fail to do it and they will take their business elsewhere. There are plenty of restaurants that will be more than happy to comply.
Good luck and happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Are You Stuck Repeating the Same Marketing Mistakes?
There is a simple yet often ignored rule: “If you are doing something that it’s not working, it still won’t work if you do more of the same.”
If you are investing in marketing and yet your restaurant is not getting the clients that you are expecting, obviously your marketing is not working for you. Sometimes-marketing techniques that used to work, don’t anymore. This could be because the marketplace is changing (more people are looking for restaurants online and ignoring the old fashion ads in radio, magazines, newspapers, etc.) and because everybody ends up using the same techniques and your message gets lost in the sea of marketing bombardment that people receive.
So what can you do to stand out? How can you get your message through?
Well, to start, you must evaluate what you are doing now and track every single marketing expense to see whether they are working for you or not. If they work and they bring you more money than you spend on the marketing, great, keep on doing it. If, on the other hand, you see that your investment is not worth it (or not trackable that it’s pretty much the same), then you must eliminate it and look for an alternative marketing strategy that works for you.
Also, it won’t hurt if you come up with some new marketing ideas to separate your restaurant from your competitors instead of repeating the same marketing that everybody else is doing.
And don’t make the mistake of reducing your restaurant marketing because of the crisis. On the contrary, this is the time to promote your place like crazy. If all your competitors cut down their marketing and you increase yours, guess who will be remember by the customers? That’s right your restaurant.
I know that you are busy people, running the daily routines, and you probably don’t have much time to sit and think about great marketing strategies. I understand, I’ve been there, but then it is critical for the success of your restaurant that you plan and implement great marketing techniques that you can track and evaluate.
They will make the difference between a full restaurant or an empty one.
Now plan some time and think about your marketing strategies. Don’t procrastinate this important task.
Good luck and Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Restaurant Owners and Managers: Are You Spending Your Time Wisely?
As a busy person who needs to deal with hundreds of problems, issues and fires on a daily basis, it is easy for restaurant owners and managers to get sidetracked and lose focus on what’s really important for their restaurant.
So my question to you is this: Are you spending your time wisely? Are you using your working hours to produce the greatest strategic payoff for your restaurant, or are you just spending 80% of your time trying to do things that somebody else would do much better than you? Are you really using your skills to the maximum?
I know that restaurateurs have a hard time delegating tasks. I used to own a restaurant. I know how hard it is to delegate on somebody else when you think that you can do better than they, or that nobody else cares as much as you do. This is probably true, and yet it is not the best way to run a business.
Let’s take a quick test. Please answer YES or NO to the following questions to evaluate if you are truly doing what you are supposed to be doing:
* Are you working mainly on daily tasks that are not relevant to your restaurant vision and strategy? (If you don’t have a vision for your restaurant and a strategy to take you there, you need to sit down for a few hours and think about this one. It is key for the success of your business).
* Are you spending most of your time doing things that you particularly don’t like, or don’t care much about?
* Are you performing chores for which there are people who can do much better (and probably quicker) than you?
* Do you spend most of your time taking care of responsibilities that you are not completely passionate about?
If you answered YES to any of these questions, you should seriously consider to delegate some of these tasks to somebody else. Some things that for you are a burden, for somebody else could be a passion. Not only you will get rid of tasks that are of not interest to you, but you will also get somebody else’s who excels at that particular task doing it. This is a win/win situation since you would liberate your most precious asset: your time, and they will be happy doing something that they really are passionate about.
So think about what really tics you. What are you really good about? What are your strengths? Focus on these and find people who can help you taking care of the necessary and yet unproductive tasks. You will be surprised to see how much you can improve your business by just spending a few hours making a list of tasks that you don’t like and can delegate in some of your employees (or even finding help outside of your restaurant if necessary).
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
Long Term Investment in Your Restaurant Clients
When you deal with your prospects and customers, you have to always think long term. For each action that you take with them, think that you are making an investment, because you are. This will also help you think more strategically whenever you have a problem with one of your customers.
For example, imagine that you have a table of four people, and that they are not in a very good mood today. No matter what your staff does, nothing seems to please them. Minor details that other times pass unnoticed, today seem to be a big deal. What can you do about this?
First, always try no to take the issue personally. Try to evaluate objectively if they are totally right and effectively there is something wrong with your food or service that day, and if so, of course take immediate action to correct any wrongdoing.
However, sometimes there is nothing wrong with your food, service, or ambience, and the problem lies within your customers. They are probably having a bad day, and they are looking for any external excuses to blame their internal feelings. We all do. Better for them to pick in your place than in their friends or spouses, at least for them…
So even in this case of unjust accusations, look at the big picture and think about that specific table as a long term investment for your business. You could take the short-term approach, recognize that it is their fault or problem, and do one of two things:
1.- Confront them and tell them that there is nothing wrong with your restaurant. Your pride will be very happy, but you will lose these customers for life and will get many negative reviews about your place in online social networks and offline referrals. This could mean tens (or even hundreds depending of how big their social cloud is) of potential new customers lost.
2.- Ignore their behavior and do nothing. You don’t confront them, but you don’t recognize the bad experience that they are having.
If you take this action (or inaction), in both cases these customers will leave your restaurant with a negative memory (it’s unfair, I know, but that+ ’s life). So they will be less likely to come back to your place.
Or you can think more strategically and take this negative event as an opportunity for you to think long term. What if you could compensate these customers so that they leave your place really impressed with the way you handled the situation? Imagine that you approach the table and tell these people: “I apologize that you are not having an excellent dinning experience today. I want to make it up to you so here you have two gift certificates (and you handle one to each couple) valid for a free meal. I want you to come back to my place and try again. I promise you that next time will be much better for you.”
Now, how do you think that these people will react? Deep down they know that there wasn’t anything specially wrong with your place or your food, and however, you still acknowledged their feelings and tried to compensate them for something that you didn’t do wrong. I can guarantee you that this small investment that you made (two free meals), will pay you back a hundredfold in free advertising and referrals from these people. They will tell all their friends and family how gracious you are and how wonderful your place is.
If you think about compensating unhappy customers as a long term investment, you will remove any personal feelings from the situation. You will be more inclined to be generous with them, and they will leave your place with a really good feeling about your restaurant and your behavior. This is a win-win situation for both parties.
Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.
