When I’m performing magic, I make every opportunity count. Throughout an evening, I have various opportunities to perform a trick, connect with the audience and generally control the atmosphere in which my guests are in. Over the years, I have learned that I need to always be on point to ensure my guests are satisfied. With higher levels of satisfaction come more bookings and more word of mouth marketing.
As a restaurant manager, you need to make sure your wait staff is making every opportunity count. Each interaction with a table is a chance to provide the “wow” factor. Are your servers well trained to provide this? Do you even know what can be done? Can your servers identify a lost opportunity after it happens?
Consider this scenario…
A child is crying because he or she doesn’t want the food that was put in front of them.
This is a very common situation within restaurants. Now, how do you and your servers respond to this situation? You can ignore the problem and hope it goes away on its own or you can take the opportunity to do something about it. Ask the child what he or she does want. Maybe it’s a new entrée, maybe it’s a new drink or maybe they just need the encouragement to try the new item in front of them. Whatever it is, when you make the move to fix it, you earn yourself a guest for life.
Every guest will leave your restaurant knowing what opportunities were used correctly and which ones were passed by. One or two missed moments can be overlooked but when there are three or four missed moments, it can lead to complete and utter dissatisfaction. This is when you will experience bad reviews online, bad word of mouth marketing and much more.
Your servers need to know how to make the most out of every opportunity they have with their guests. If they don’t understand the importance of these moments, they are not going to keep your guests happy. You may not even be aware of how many opportunities are missed in a night – until you get the letters of disappointment from a guest. And those letters are only if you’re lucky – some will just choose never to return.
Opportunities to “wow” your guests are within your control. It all starts with teaching your servers about how to make the most out of every guest interaction.
Watch Video for restaurant servers on making the most out of every opportunity.
