Restaurant Customer Service
Successful restaurants in today’s world have a system to ensure the servers are providing WOW restaurant customer service to the customers. Restaurant Customer Service must maintain high standards. Many restaurants are having a difficult time staying afloat due to the economy and an unstable market. Today, most people want to stretch their money, and do not want to spend their hard-earned cash on mediocre service. If the guest receives mediocre service, they will go to the restaurant next door where they can get WOW restaurant customer service.
You should be the restaurant next door that is giving WOW service. When you train your servers in how to provide top-notch service then you will see excellent results. Successful Restaurants use a proven service program. This is the importance of the Workplace Wizard’s WOW Service Program.
Set a high standard, start training your servers today, and become a WOW restaurant.
The first part of the Restaurant customer service program is for all the servers to know your Menu. Then they need to know the WOW Steps of Service and receive top-notch training. Next, they need to perform the WOW Steps of Service consistently. They must feel supported in their efforts by the management staff and the rest of the restaurant team. Cooking staff will also need to be performing top-notch and communicating with service staff.
When it comes to using the WOW Steps of Service test, the servers need to study the steps through the WOW Steps of Service Quick Reference sheet. When they are ready to take the test, they need to take it by memory and not by using the reference sheet. Plenty of servers say that they know the steps of service, but then when asked them to recite the steps, many of them cannot remember. It is because they do not know them. How can you ensure servers follow the steps if they do not know them?
Training is essential.
The trainer for the Restaurant Customer Service Program needs to the best server in the restaurant or your Front of House Service Manager. The trainer needs to score 100% and can verbally recite the steps. In addition, the trainer should be consistently demonstrating the steps of service in their work. The person leading the training must be a top-performing server who WOWs the customers on a daily basis. This the server who has repeat customers coming in and asking for him/her by name. Once the trainer understands the Restaurant Customer Service Program, he/she can begin training the other service staff.
Here are some effective ways to train your servers in the Restaurant Customer Service Program:
Menu Knowledge
Make sure your servers know the menu–and always keep the servers informed of new items or menu changes. The base of all service is to know the product they are selling–which is your menu. Then they need to know how to sell it. This is a key element of the steps of service. Without this supporting base, then your servers won’t be consistently able to perform great restaurant customer service . The first part of the training should include quizzing the server on the menu. They should know it in detail–including descriptions and featured menu items.
Role playing
You can train more than one server. Select an area away from your customer’s view, or train while the restaurant is closed. All the servers-in-training must be able to view the trainer who is going to show the WOW Service Program. The trainer demonstrates the WOW Steps of Service-step one through step six. Select some servers-in-training or other available staff members to play the roles of guests. Once the trainer has demonstrated the WOW steps of service and he/she will answer any questions of the servers-in training. Then the trainer picks one of the servers-in training to take his/her place until all servers-in training have completed the demonstration successfully. This training technique will provide great restaurant customer service.
Memory game
The trainer will actually wait on real customers, by using the steps of service. A server-in-training will shadow that trainer, but the trainee should only observe and ask questions. As the trainer goes from step to step then he/she should verbally quiz the trainee. If the trainee does not know the step, then the trainer should correctly answer the question for them—or prompt if they think the server will be able to answer with clues. Continue on to step two, then a few minutes later quiz the trainee again on step one until they know it by memory. Continue this process all the way to step six.
Customers Talking About Your WOW Restaurant Customer Service
Customers who have experienced WOW Restaurant Customer Service will look forward to coming back to your restaurant. These customers are your top form of marketing. Word of mouth will spread as you perfect the WOW Steps of Service Program. Word of mouth is the number one source of advertisement for any restaurant, and best of all it is free.
Did you know that the average person has an email address book, Facebook or Twitter account with over 150 to 300+ friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances?
When a person leaves your restaurant receiving great restaurant customer service it creates a positive memorable event. In return they spread the news to everyone they know. Of course, not everyone will visit your restaurant because of what he/she heard. However, it only takes a handful of people to make a huge impact on building your sales.
Here is an example.
You have a restaurant that seats 50 guests or more. Your restaurant has WOW restaurant customer service and you have served at least 50 guests during an evening. This is a low estimate since you’ll likely seat each table more than once. Then those 50 guests will tell their friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances. You receive four guests for every 50 people that talked about the great restaurant customer service. Then you have gained two hundred new guests. If they also receive WOW Restaurant Customer Service, then they will spread the word. At that rate, it would not take long for you to have a line of guest waiting at the door. People are willing to wait for fantastic service. That is building a reputation one guest at a time.
Why are people going to take the word of mouth over costly advertising on the radio or TV? Most people trust someone they know much more than someone they see on an ad. Because the level of trust that you have established into that person, it is called the trust of information factor. You trust that person, and therefore it is reliable information.
Maybe you consistently have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on advertising. Instead, invest a few thousand dollars to get top-notch training–ONCE! Then make sure your management and serving staff maintain that consistent WOW Service Program.
How can you benefit in word-of-mouth marketing?
The key is in your hand and you just have to open the door, it’s that simple. It’s starts with great service, like our WOW Restaurant Customer Service Program. A great investment would be for our trainers to come out and provide the first level of training. Then we can provide a service to come regularly—say quarterly—to review and re-train. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We have put together a proven program in the WOW Restaurant Customer Service Program. It works; you just need to maintain it consistently. Many restaurants, all throughout the United States, use programs like the WOW Restaurant Customer Service Program, and they are successful. Let’s ask that question again, how can you benefit from word of mouth marketing, it’s as simple as following a program with one, two, three, four, five and six steps of service executed perfectly. If you follow our program, it will result in the word of your WOW service spreading from your guests to their friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances.
What can the Workplace Wizards do for your restaurant?
We can help train and mold your service staff into top quality servers. We will teach them the benefits of the WOW Service program. We will get them to “own” the program. Our trainers have over 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry. The trainers have experience as servers and understand the challenges and rewards of the server’s position.
We have expert trainers and expert restaurant staff all combined into our terrific WOW Service Program. With many years of experience in training, and over twenty-five years of experience in the restaurant industry, we can make it work for you.
Customer service is the key to your success, you can have great food and well-presented staff, but you lack WOW service, and that alone will limit your success.
Call and contact us today for a free consultation about how we can serve you.
Our training packages include:
Review of your menu, policies and procedures to make sure our staff are on target with your needs.
Our staff on-site for the training for eight hour shifts—days, evenings, nights or weekends. We recommend several days of training—with some real service time where we can monitor and coach your staff.
Training on the fundamentals of server position
Server handbooks
Training service staff in a hands-on training
Training through proven training techniques
WOW Steps of Service presentation with a upbeat live Instructor
All tests and paperwork including–Server tests, WOW steps of service tests
Question and answers
Top-notch trainers who have server experience
Games and activities that will provide motivation and incentive to servers-in-training
All we ask of you is:
- Advance copies of menus, policies and procedures at your restaurant, and any other relevant information about your restaurant–if you don’t have any policies or procedures or an employee handbook, then we can work with you to create it before our training.
- A meeting room, or your dining room where we can do the training
- A location for our viewing monitor screen—or access to your TV Screens from our laptop
- Motivational awards and incentives for the staff—such as gift cards, movie tickets, etc.
- If your location is more than 30 minutes away from our location, but within a reasonable driving distance, then we add transportation or mileage costs. If we are traveling out of state, then we ask for airfare and accommodations for our trainers.
On-Site Training
We will discuss the price for our trainers to come to your site to teach the WOW Restaurant Customer Service Program.
We offer on-site training for your staff. We will work with you to decide what kind of training is appropriate for your restaurant in our free phone consultation. We will work with you so that the training is exactly what you’ll need. All your staff may attend.