Customer relations in my Bar /Restaurant Spain
Last post I talked about controlling staff
Today I want to talk about how to select, contract and train staff to best serve your profit goals.
A small business like Graham’s Pizzeria needs a couple to run it and between one and two extra staff.
The extra staff do the simple tasks like shifting rubbish and washing up, but they also do one of the most vital jobs in any bar/restaurant i.e:
they are at the coal face, interfacing with the client, and as all income flows from the client, you need your staff to be:
- Attractive
- Well dressed
- Polite at all times
- Have a strong personality and be able to chat with clients who are waiting.
- Have at least some English and Spanish
- Write down orders clearly to the system which you have established.
- Be capable of remembering where each order goes on a given table
- To regulate the work flow going into the kitchen
Young well groomed women will bring in more trade, but in businesses with more than two staff a young well turned out waiter will also draw in trade.
I’ll deal with each point over the next few posts, but let’s get started:
Interviewing.
When interviewing ask yourself does this person fit my criteria and ask them questions relative to previous experience, going on to work you way down the above list. Sometimes the first person you interview is the perfect candidate and other times you have to interview several people to find a suitable candidate. Remember, be patient and wait until you find the right person who you feel is prepared to learn and will add to you business.
Too Many Orders in My Bar Restaurant Spain
What To do when Food Orders Start to Block-Up the Kitchen?
You can easily find yourself in this situation, especially during July and August.
It is very bad for your restaurant to accept too many orders at any one time. Too many orders flowing into the kitchen can only mean two things:
- Customers will have long waits for their food and you will loose valuable return trade. (Customers with small children hate to eat in places where the service is slow.)
- When a kitchen gets too busy mistakes get made, the food quality drops-off and incorrect orders arrive at the customer’s table. Result, the loss of valuable return trade.
How do you deal with this situation, once it has occurred?
If the situation has already occurred, it is too late to stop poor service becoming the result i.e. customers waiting too long and getting fed-up and even angry.
All you can do in this situation is a bit of last minute damage control:
- Instruct staff to tell all customers that there will be a wait involved in preparing their orders and in the case of customers who haven’t ordered also stress the unavoidable long wait.
- Instruct staff to stop taking orders for main courses for as long as it takes for the kitchen to unblock.
- Staff must slow everything down. Take more time on drinks orders, chat to customers.
- Only where customers refuse to wait to have their order taken, do everything you can to get them to have easy to prepare or pre-prepared starters.
The Proper Solution to Back-up of Orders in the Kitchen:
Correct Training
All staff should know to control the kitchens work flow
When you know that it’s really busy:
- Clean the table as guests arrive and strike up a bit of chat. Tell them you’ll be right back to take their drinks order (slowing things down.)
- Serve their drinks 5-10 min later and apologise (slowing things down.)
- Give them the menus 5 min after you have served drinks (slowing things down.)
- 5 min later take order for starters.
- As they finish their starters take the main orders and Tell Them There Will Be a Delay and apologise.
If you follow these simple procedures everything will flow smoothly, your customers will feel that they are important to you. They will realize that the wait is unavoidable and maybe they wont even notice that you have strung everything out. A lot of customers enjoy this more leisurely continental approach and the end result is that they’ll probably become Return Customers.
