It's no secret that restaurant's atmosphere is just as crucial to its success as good food and thoughtful design. So how do you create a pleasant and comfortable atmosphere in a restaurant? There is only one way: to offer your guests top-class service. This requires a team in which everyone understands the importance of service culture and their role in creating a positive atmosphere. It is only possible to achieve with ongoing training, so professional trainers and consultants will likely be needed.
Sometimes restaurant employees do not know each other well, have no idea who is responsible for what, do not understand the hierarchy and do not know who reports to whom, and sometimes find it difficult to formulate their job descriptions. It is too early to talk about love for the guests in such cases because the establishment still needs a team.
What should be done to make a dispersed staff grow into a team? First, employees need to get to know each other. Then, remember that if management is attentive to its employees, they will also be thoughtful of the guests.
You then need to identify how much the staff understands the values and mission of the institution and then discuss and refine them with the team. Once you know the goals for the coming year and the five-year development vector, you can tackle service and atmosphere. There are seven steps you can take to improve service.
1. Diagnostics.
Conduct a health audit of your establishment: examine how all business processes are setup and analyse who is involved in guest interactions and who is not. It will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team for further training.
2. Preparing a training plan
Drawing up a training plan for a week, a month and a half a year is recommended. Topics for induction training from the "essentials" list - corporate culture, service standards and conflict resolution.
3. Appointing the responsible persons
The golden rule of business is: if no one is in charge of the process, you have no process. So as soon as you decide to run a training process, you need to appoint someone to oversee it. Typically, this will be a senior manager, a manager and/or an experienced staff member.
4. Developing establishment standards
Many people think it is unnecessary to prescribe what is already evident. It is a mistake! The more you detail the standard algorithms for the tasks that employees face every day, the more effective they will be. And you will be able to manage the service because it is only possible to evaluate the team's performance with clear parameters that algorithms can set.
5. Developing checklists.
Each employee should have a clear, understandable and unambiguous checklist to make it easier to understand and remember procedures in common situations.
6. Planned training
Once you have decided to train your staff, you should stick to your training plan and hold periodic training sessions with your team to check that they are learning and applying what they have learned. Everyone must understand that training is a thorough daily process that requires the concentration of everyone involved - those who learn and those who teach.
7. Analysing and working with feedback
Feedback is an effective tool that should always be addressed! Proper use of feedback will help to clear up any misunderstandings that may arise quickly and to respond promptly to guest complaints. In addition to feedback, you should analyse the work results after the training to understand which standards need to be changed and which topics and issues need further training.
If you are considering implementing a learning process in your institution, that's already good. What's left to do is the hardest step: move from theory to practice, from thought to action. If you are still getting ready for this process, you can always seek professional help.
At STATK, we provide an immersive and comprehensive learning experience covering various aspects of the culinary world, including cuisine styles, culinary techniques, menu planning, food safety and hygiene, and restaurant management. For more information, don't hesitate to contact us at info@statk.co.
