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Cowboys Beware: There's a new NMI sheriff in town and he's here for your jiggers!
Watch out! Are you one of the hospitality operators willfully under-serving spirits and beer or not using correct jiggers to take advantage of patrons?
How long should your customer wait for a drink? PART TWO
The one question you should ask for 2019? How long should your customer wait for a drink?
Like many people getting back down to business this January, you're probably looking at the how, what, why, when of the year.
But there's one simple question, that may help you answer a lot of those other questions....
How long should a guest wait for their drink?
TOO LITTLE TOO MUCH!
Recently I went to a diner and ordered a hamburger for lunch. The traditional square napkin holder was on the table, dispensing single square folded napkins.
By the end of the meal l'd unintentionally used 4 napkins, and felt a little embarrassed.
Did I just make far too much mess?
After the initial guilt trip, some semblance of logic kicked in: on one hand I thought, who cares how many napkins I've used, they’re cheap! On the other I thought isn’t there a financial cost and environmental impact of what I had just done?
The average person isn’t going to be consumed by these thoughts, however on further reflection - who's really to blame? The customer or the manager?
Understand l ordered a messy burger, and was going to make a mess, however the provided napkins were very small when opened, brittle and not well absorbing.
Would l have used as much as l did if the napkins happened to be thicker and higher quality?
Bingo...the answer in one: management presumably wanted to save money buying napkins. Napkins are consumable, rarely thought of, yet still part of a customer experience.
Buyers mandate are built around saving money/reducing costs and do not usually consider end results and consequences.
By opting for the cheapest napkin, the diners still need to get the job done, but at what extra cost in terms of purchase quantity, extra labor and disposal costs?
On face value who'd argue with the righteousness of saving a buck? Yet in practical terms using 2, 3 or 4 times the necessary amount of paper will probably end up costing far more than having purchased a higher grade quality of napkin to start with!
The point: failure to properly invest ends up costing more when the cheapest option tends not to be the best, requiring more time, effort and usage to get the job done.
So isn't this a case of too little costing far too much?
What do you think!?
Add Value...Avoid Discounting
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WORM OF MOUTH
It’s surprising how many start-up bars are so busy getting up and running that owners and managers forget to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Worm of mouth or negative guest experience is customer catastrophic!
Customers tell us how we’re doing or more importantly not doing... when we think we’re doing great we may not be doing as well as we think... the silent assassins are loudly talking your business down or talking up a competitors at your expense.
WTcF... WHERE'S THE CUSTOMER FOCUS
Hospitality businesses should focus on creating great guest experiences; delivered flawlessly.
Sadly many hospo businesses lose sight of this, at Über we refer to this failure as WTcF.. (Where’s The Customer Focus).
This failure delivered by guest-facing staff breaks the bond of trust between guest and staff, the human element of the delivered hospitality experience.
To know whether your business and staff are focused here’s an Uber checklist of questions you need to answer honestly:
1. Customers should be heard once!
A customer must never repeat his/her order, problem, frustration... the experience/service must be 100% right, done once!
2. Quality must be tested before a customer eats, drinks or experiences anything.
Winging it, iterating on the fly, is a recipe for failure. Guest offerings must be thoroughly battle and stress tested first!
3. A customer must never ask where’s their drink, meal or order.
Production, kitchen, customer service feedback systems are in place to ensure that this does not happen! If not then it’s time to refine the process, retrain, re-imagine every guest facing strategy.
4. A delivered drink, meal, service or product requires immediate feedback.
Getting immediate feedback protects against failure. Unattended feedback translates into potentially disgruntled guests.
5. Customer’s time, convenience and satisfaction must be valued.
The customer is the hero in your story. Actions and attentiveness create the guest outcomes.
6. Customers require respect, including the rude ones.
Team members must be taught how to deal with all situations. Even the rude customers deserve patience and need to be shown respect.
7. Never tell customers: how busy, full or short staffed you are.
Using any of these excuses is a massive failure, no one’s in business to be quiet? Never use language that communicates that you’re more important than your guest.
Image by www.freepik.com
MORE OR LESS? THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK IN BUSINESS
Whether it’s a bar, restaurant, lifestyle or destination store the principals are exactly the same.
At Über there’s a favourite question we love asking when evaluating performance, new products, operational considerations, sales and marketing stuff.
Here it is:
What did we do that worked that we must do more of and what didn’t work that we must do less of or drop?
Once the conclusions are in, next step actions are very straight forward.
Why not apply this principal yourself, it’s a winner!
Image designed by www.freepik.com
VR - WALKING IN YOUR CUSTOMER'S SHOES
Meaning we're so used to seeing things our way that we forget about the customer and their journey whether within the walls or on a screen.
Most Millennials are gamers, so they’re spending lots of time in VR (Virtual Reality) worlds.
Living in this environment changes many things.
Importantly to get Millennials emotionally involved requires, a story that involves, journey, action, intrigue and adventure.
As a business owner are you creating this world within yours?
Ok, so let’s position ourselves within this more interactive, immersive world, in other words walk in our customers shoes, can you feel what you’d like them to feel when they’re inside your world?
Will the experience be tactile, experiential, immersive or self directed...can we add colour, mood and music.
Is there something that the user/customer can get involved with a game, or possibly a feedback loop etc?
Lastly is there anything that can be improved? If so, how?
Serving and selling is the ultimate cause and effect relationship. Walking in your customers shoes is that journey every business must take, to do so means you’ve increased the chances of staying relevant, maybe even loved.
THE AGREEABLE VS. THE ANGRY CHEFTATOR
We’ve all experienced issues with bully boy chefs (AKA Cheftators) who dictate how and what their guests will eat and act, irrespective of the guests needs.
How refreshing to be welcomed with a new refrain, when recently booking at a high end Italian restaurant.
My partner a vegetarian, gluten free, pesticide free, with a few other exhausting not to be repeated dietary needs, needs to be very sure about where we eat to ensure her needs are catered for.. Me, on the other hand, l’m a vicarious vegetarian - l eat things that eat vegetables.
Expecting our reservation to be cancelled immediately here was the reply from the telephone host:
“No problems sir, our Chef loves a challenge, we do try to accommodate most people’s needs.”
Wow, l thought, the time of the Cheftator is now over, particularly when more and more people for reasons of choice or otherwise have special dietary needs. A failure today of a Chef or business for that matter to recognise the needs of their customers is itself an act of “Dishospitality."
Whether a Chef, a snickerty Bartender or Business owner, he or she who does not bend from the knee to their guests or customers, will quickly be wrong way rounded and kicked you know where!
Images from www.freepik.com
ALL CONSUMING CONSUMABLES
In hospitality a consumable is the finishing touch to a main product; just like packaging or gift wrapping.
Consumables are defined as a unit of input required to facilitate or add value to a process. For example, a coaster is a consumable – you need to consume a coaster as part of the final presentation of cocktail.
As such, a consumable is not a considered item, but rather a cost of doing business, tending to be cheap and disposable with little or no thought required?
Some example of consumables are napkins, coaster, garnishes and pour spouts.
So what happens when an expense is considered so unimportant, that it’s not measured, will there be potential negative impacts on a business?
The answer is a resounding yes…when management doesn’t measure the cost of something, then staff won’t care either.
The message sent/received "when it doesn’t matter to you then why should we care."
Have you ever seen a bartender toss an empty liquor bottle with a pour spout still attached. It’s fairly common.
If the speed pourer costs $2 each, over 1 year, what will the bottle/pourer toss add up to?
The moral of the story - care about the cost of consumables!
Failure to factor the impact of consumables on profitability will have negative impacts.
DECONSTRUCTED MENUS
Ever stop to think about thick food or cocktail menus featuring a dazzling array of choices?
It almost feels that everything in the book is being thrown at the guest ,hoping something will take!
Running counter to "too much" menu design , is the deconstructed” or simplified menu selection.
Deconstructed menus suggests that businesses have taken the time to understand customers needs, reducing order serve times.
Faster order turnaround times tend to reduce waste and mistakes possibly increasing spend from still hungry guests wanting something extra!
Shorter times to think about then receive menu choices tends to create better hospitality experiences, a win for everyone!