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Running a bar well is no different to doing anything well. Simply stated it boils down to: What you put in is what you get back and usually in good measure too.
My advice is to give as much of yourself as you can to your customers. Be prepared to give help if someone has lost their bag or locked him or herself out. It’s very helpful if you can keep all the useful phone numbers handy, so that when a client of yours has a problem you can call a locksmith for them or anybody else they might need.
By being helpful you are demonstrating that you are a nice person and you will attract regular customers to your bar in that way, because people will like you.
Be a good listener: If you listen to people’s stories and problems, they will really appreciate it and will repay you by coming to spend money in your bar regularly.
However, it’s not a good idea to sit down at a customer’s table, as you will get stuck there and will have to neglect your other customers, so just listen to a sentence or two and then say “Excuse me! I must do this or that.” By doing this you create the illusion that you are listening even if you are only picking up half the story.
The point here is that your customer will feel happy that they’ve been given a chance to share their story with you and they will go home happy.
When running a business it is very important to communicate whatever you are planning to do within your business in the immediate future to your clients.
I personally just imagine that I’m the client and then ask myself.” What sort of activities would I like my host to inform me about in advance?”
e.g. Here are some of the things that annoy me as a client when I am not kept in touch with scheduled of forthcoming events:
- Arriving at one of my favourite bars for breakfast and finding it closed with not even a note advising when normal service is to be reinstated. (If you’re going to take an impromptu day/week off, your regulars will really appreciate the fact if you tell them personally in advance and they’ll be there on your doorstep the day you reopen. Apart from regulars there will be prospective clients who are staying in your area and would like to try your bar, if you leave a neat well presented note stuck on the inside of your main window announcing when you will be resuming normal service, the chances are that they will come to see you when you return.)
- Finding out that a raffle has been held (usually for charity) and that I was not offered a chance to participate.
- Finding out too late that a coach trip to a site of interest has been arranged and that it is sold out.
At the end of the day like most things, it boils down to common sense. Customers like to feel included not excluded. Another way of putting it is that people are easily offended.
If you keep all your clients informed as to your forthcoming events schedule, either by putting up neat notices on the walls /windows or by telling them directly, they will be very appreciative of your thought and effort and your turn over will increase accordingly.
