ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - April 26, 2002

This week is about getting ready for the Super Summit next Monday and Tuesday. The details are coming together, the shipments all arrived on time, the content is looking awesome and I am excited!

KEEP IT CLEAN
It seems to come in cycles, but after months of virtually virus-free e-mail, I am suddenly getting several messages a day infected with the Klez virus. For more details on this pest and what it can do to your computer (not to mention what it will do for your social standing to be messing up the computers of everyone in your address book!), go to http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.h@mm.html. If you suspect that you may be infected -- or just to be sure you aren't -- at the site above you can download a neat little removal tool program. All this is just another reminder of how vital it is to have good anti-virus software and -- equally as important -- keep it regularly updated. 'Nuff said.

TACT R US
In last week's EHC, I talked about dining room seating snafus. At one point in there, I said, "Managing the flow of traffic means not seating any particular station faster than the server can handle it. Sometimes this means holding the guests for a few minutes even when there is a table available (and your training should cover how to do this tactfully) but it always means distributing tables equally among the servers."

A subscriber wrote to ask how she could tactfully make guests wait when they saw tables sitting empty. For what it may be worth, this was my response

The best bet, of course, is to make sure that the hostess/greeter/floor manager seats each section in rotation, particularly when the dining room is just filling up. Depending on the size of the room, usually by the time each station has been seated with a table, the server at the first station has had enough time to get a start on her last table and is ready to take another.

Sometimes this means intentionally slowing the seating speed just a bit to give the staff enough time and still let the guests see that the machine is cranking. Your front door people should be sensitive to the pace of the place so they know when to speed up and when to back off.

If you have tables that are more desirable (like window tables with a view) that tend to fill first, be sure to design your sections so that those tables are distributed among several different stations. This will help avoid over-seating anyone.

If a guest is ready to be seated and the only empty tables are at stations where the server has just taken a new party, I would say something like, "Have you ever been seated at a table and then had to wait forever for the waitress to show up? (Usually you will get a knowing grimace in return.) Well we may be close to that here and I don't want it to happen to you. I just seated a party for that server and would like to let her get them started so that she can attend to you promptly once you are seated. If you don't mind giving her a few minutes to get caught up, I would love to buy you a drink while you are waiting." Ninety times out of ninety-one, they will be happy to hold for a few minutes.

Without going too far into the hypothetical, if the guest has a problem with that, I would say, "I know how frustrating it can be, but believe me, we would both be more frustrated if you were sitting at the table and not receiving the level of service we want you to have. If you are going to be upset, I would rather it be because we DIDN'T seat you than because we DID."

Still being hypothetical, if they profess that they are in a big hurry, I would say, "Not a problem. Let me suggest thisIt would probably take you a few minutes after you got seated to study the menu and decide what you want. Let me get you a menu now. You can look it over and make your choices. I should be about ready to seat you by the time you figure out what you want and you will receive your meals that much faster. If need be, I can even put the order in the kitchen before you are seated so the food will be out very quickly after you sit down. The offer of that drink still stands . . . or would you prefer an appetizer?"

If they are still upset, then they are looking for a problem not a solution and you never would have been able to please them anyway.

HAVE IT YOUR WAY
In life, there are lots of right answers. Here is another subscriber comment on this seating issue

If the hostess puts me on a bad table I will usually ask to be moved, so why not simply offer a choice to begin with? When I am taking care of the door I always offer customers a choice of several tables. Then I ask, "Would you like to sit face-to-face or side-by-side?" You would be surprised how many people like to sit side-by-side. On a slow night I change some four-tops to side-by-side tables of two. I always have guests thanking me for giving them a choice. It's such a simple way to make people happy.

That's it for now. Next week I will regale you with stories from the Super Summit. Better yet, be impulsive. Check hotwire.com for low last-minute airfares and join us in Seattle. All the details are still details are posted on the web.

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