Electronic House Call - February 14, 2003

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - February 14, 2003

Happy Valentine's Day! This should be a strong night for the table service folks -- an opportunity to make memories as well as put a few dollars in your pocket. While it is always important to deliver well-prepared food in a friendly manner, I urge you to do something unexpected for your guests tonight. This could be a wonderful chance to turn new diners into regulars.

UNFORGETTABLE VS. MEMORABLE
I received this in Steve Straus' 3-Minute Coaching e-letter a few weeks ago. In light of the Valentine's Day weekend, it seemed appropriate to pass it along.

At a fine-dining restaurant a few years ago the wine steward asked the patrons if they would like to order a wine to accompany their meal. A guest replied that they would like a wine that was "memorable, but not unforgettable." The sommelier smiled and replied, "I understand."

What's the difference between an "unforgettable" wine and a merely "memorable" one? Several hundred dollars per bottle. When you provide service to your customers -- and whether you own a business, are a homemaker, a professional, or a staff person in a corporation, you still have customers -- do you do so at a high level so that your service is memorable? Or do you provide service that is unforgettable?

Unlike the bottle of wine, providing unforgettable service may not cost you much more than memorable service. However, the benefits to you could be huge because of your customer's strong positive reaction, which will be remembered forever.

You can subscribe to Steve's e-letter (for free!)

GUEST IN CRISIS
Another tale from the field, this time from colleague Joel Cohen, my co-conspirator on Year of the Guest program. Early YOTG subscribers will recognize the headline from YOGA Exercise #5. (If you are not already subscribed to Year of the Guest, you are missing a lot of great training ideas. See below.)

Joel writes: Guest in Crisis? It happened to me just 90 minutes ago ... except that no one recognized the crisis. We went to a new Mexican Restaurant. Pleasantly seated, the ambience was great, and featured a huge mural of the works of a famous Mexican artist. This looked like a real good "find." I asked the waitress what the restaurant was famous for and was told that fajitas are the best seller. So far so good. However, my order was wrong, my wife's chicken tacos had chicken in it that was shredded almost to a puree, and my daughter's cheese nachos were pretty much void of the cheese.

I went to find the server to ask her for a side of queso. I suggested that the nachos should have a more liberal helping of cheese on them, and was pointedly told to "go in the kitchen and tell them that." I said, "that's not my job." She said, "well, they don't listen to me." I asked for the owner and was told he was in the restaurant next door (they have a pizza shop also.) I then asked who was running the place and was told no one.

Upon receiving my bill, I asked my server if she thought that we would ever come back to this restaurant. She said, "probably not." And that was it!

YEAR OF THE GUEST
Regular readers by now are familiar with our Year of the Guest program that offers a year's worth of proven sales-building tips in exchange for a small donation to Share Our Strength. To date we have raised $11,000 to support their work. Rather than me telling you what a great program this is, let me share a few comments from the current participants.

From Carl Hixon: so far the YOGA (Year of Guest Awareness) program has been a big hit with us at Georgios in Pensacola. It is fun seeing the servers making that personal connection with the customer and watching them earn more money in their pockets because of it.

From Grover Niemeier, FMP: You have made a super start with this piece (YOGA Exercise #1). Those that will follow your process cannot do anything but improve dramatically the key ingredient to having "a pleased guest". That key factor in hospitality success is simply "Service"! I look forward to your sharing of future lessons.

From Rick Spicher: The team loves them and actually looks forward to the messages.

Find out more about the Year of the Guest program.

THE PERPETUAL QUESTION
What did you learn from your staff today?

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