Ops vs CR - Disciplined First Impressions
In our continuing exploration of how operations supports creativity, I wanted to dive into a recent restaurant experience. Here, the food, the experience, the brand itself, are all thought of as creative expressions, but I would propose that operations are paramount to conveying this. Case in point for this exploration, the first impression and greeting.
So, it was dinner night with the wife.Pretty fancy, ulta-modern decor, blah blah. My wife and I both spent time in service, so we get nerdy and talk about experiences in painful detail.
Reservation is made, just walk in to get seated. Nobody is there. No hostess, waitress, not even a call from behind the bar. Yet, behind the bar by the kitchen there are five people, who have looked up and seen us, but haven’t moved. The man in a suit must be a manager, he also does nothing. There were maybe four tables actually seated, so it was not that people were too busy. After a couple minutes standing awkwardly, I walked up to the bar where I think I guilted the bartender into helping us get seated.
Now, what would you expect? With a reservation and a pricey menu, I would expect a quick greeting, name check and be in my seat within a minute, even if it was busy.
How could something so simple like a greeting be overlooked? All that money in fancy decor, hype music system, bar setup, menu design; all compromised by a bad first impression. My thoughts, there was no process in place that governed greetings for the team. All that investment in creativity was jeopardized because of no investment in operations.
Why is operationalizing our creative business necessary?
People have different experiences in business, and they bring those habits with them. You want your brand to be consistent, not what people individually decide it is.
People get busy and have to prioritize things. Establish what is most important so people know how to behave.
People respond to incentives and consequences, so outline why the processes matter, what you expect from them and therefore how you’ll evaluate their work.
People are human. Obvious, but that means people want to know why they’re being asked to do something. Give them the respect of explaining why.
People need direction. Just telling them why isn’t explaining how. Outline how you want them to meet an expectation so they can help.
Business Statement: Service Matters
Why? We compete on service as much as our product. Our business succeeds based on word of mouth from customers and repeat business. That means we have to outperform not just in our food quality, but in how we serve our customers.
A bad service experience can override a good product experience, therefore we must invest in quality service experiences. We’ve built a process that outlines how service is administered to ensure we meet these expectations and remove friction. Everyone has a role to play in service.
What is friction? Any point in our customer’s night that is negative is friction. This could be unnecessary waiting, food quality, noise levels, table cleanliness, etc. Our job in service is to remove all sources of friction we can. If you see opportunities to improve our experience, we want to work with you to make that happen!
Why does this matter to you? There is a lot of earning potential through tips at our business, and this is directly impacted by the quality of experience. In a very real way, your earning, and your satisfaction with working here, are reliant on us working together to provide a great meal with memorable service to our customers.
NOTE: Yes, not everywhere has tipping the same way. If not, you have to connect the why into something that matters personally. Incentives are important, connect processes to incentives where you can.
Service Expectation: Everyone is greeted immediately once they enter. Immediately.
Why? First impressions are key to making the guest feel welcome and reduce confusion at the door. Our impression is organized, friendly and efficient. Most of our guests make reservations, so they expect us to be ready for them when they arrive. Customers don’t expect to wait for greeting service, so any friction here is a serious problem, and can jeopardise our guests' experience with us.
Greeting Etiquette: Welcome to Sean’s Taco Joint! Do you have a reservation?
Yes - Check list, confirm, seat
No - Check openings, provide wait expectation, offer seat at bar
No with no availability - Apologize, offer to sign them up for another night.
DO NOT shout across the restaurant to welcome someone. Walk up to them to greet them.
Moment between: Our brand is about making people feel welcomed and part of the family. That means welcoming them and asking about a reservation is a minimum. We encourage you to engage in small talk, ask if there is an occasion, how they’re night is going. If there is a special occasion, speak with your manager. There might be a treat or a drink we’ll give them to make the night more memorable.
Note: There is far more to be built out here about branding and customer communication. There may be a certain personality you want to convey, certain words you use, don’t use, etc. That would pertain to more than just the greeting, and would be worth creating.
Note: There may be other details related to the entrance to add, such as having menus, seats, samples, etc. Those should also be expressed in the operations program if so.
Greeting and seating is the highest priority of our service. That means if you see a customer waiting at the front, you will postpone table service to ensure they are addressed.
Moment between: If you have to turn them away, what could you offer them? Is there another restaurant nearby you would recommend that would do the same for you? Buddy up with another place for overflow, avoid a bad moment for the people arriving, be a hero!
Once seated: “Your waitress (name should be known) will be with you shortly.”
Support Process: Assign responsibilities
Why? To achieve our goal of being organized and greeting people immediately, everyone must be able to do this job. If a hostess is not available, everyone has to be able to jump in quickly to help entering customers.
Hostess: responsible for managing entry and exit of all clientele.
No hostess available? Order of next responsibility:
Manager
Waitress
Bar Staff
All staff follow greeting etiquette, no exception!
Moment between: Customers appreciate when people jump to help them, and notice very quickly when people don’t. If there are idle staff when customers are looking for service, this immediately creates friction. It is not acceptable for there to be idle staff when customers are waiting to be seated.
What if: There are system issues, you’re new, missing reservation, etc.
In the event you’re unable to proceed with seating a customer, you must find the floor manager to support. Bring the customer over to have a seat at the front door or the bar if there is ample space while the manager is found. Proceed with helping other customers while the manager addresses the situation.
Note: I stopped at the customer being seated with my process exploration, but it’s easy to see how this can be pulled through all points of experience with the customer. Once you apply something like this to an actual restaurant, you would quickly find many other details you would add to the operations plan.
So, what did all this work show us? That by operationalizing our service process, we add standards of quality to our creative business. This ensures we have an amazing experience, or people are held accountable very clearly when they don’t. So many well established franchise businesses have this so the brand gets carried strongly between locations with different teams.