Content:
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3

---

Part 1

Chapter 4

Welcome Notes

In the final chapter of the welcome part, we will discuss how not to lose guests; how to plan out your work and briefly touch on what is service.

So, why do some restaurants succeed and some don’t? To understand why that is happening, we must look at other examples.

Let us take an example we all know about from our childhood. We all learned to ride a bicycle when we were kids. Some of us learned by ourselves, some got the help of an older brother or a friend. After some time passes that you don’t ride your bike anymore, you think that you forget how to do it, when in fact, we all know, that once you learned to ride it, you will never forget how to.

But, try getting on a bicycle 8 years after you haven’t ridden one. You are still riding it, but you are unsure of yourself.

Now the point I am trying to make is not about someone who is trying to remember to hold a servicing tray. The point is the following:

When you manage to bring all the things together to put up a good restaurant or a hotel, you hire the correct stuff, you think out a perfect marketing plan, you do everything right… But still, something is not clicking.

Well, the point is that forgetting how to ride that bike of yours is basically the same as losing guests. You still ride a bike, but you not sure in yourself. You think you know what you doing, but instead of taking your time to master the skills once again, you just think that you know better and keep on riding until you fall down and hurt yourself.

Most hotels and restaurants don’t pay enough attention to guests they have lost. They think of it as a norm. They even go as far as finding statistics to back it up with.

I was never sure where they find this, but I was always amazed when I was shown a document to back it up. “Look,” said the manager “According to those reports losing 5 – 10% is actually a good result”.

These types of things always amused me. If you think losing guests (over any reason) can be good, then you are bound to fail, not today or tomorrow, but you will fail.

If you are losing guests, then you must understand why you lost them. Make surveys amongst stuff, make surveys amongst guests. Study the occasion on which the particular event happened. Check out all the angles possible. Spend your time on it.

You might not be able to fix this occasion, but you will certainly be able to understand what happened and never lose a guest again for that reason.

Going back to statistics, there is one thing for certain. Using statistics available is one thing (and there are plenty out there), but it is nothing like your own.

So whenever you can do measure guests satisfaction, whether its surveys, reviews or a quick question to the guest by a member of staff. Always monitor this information. Write it down; think of your own comfortable way to put this information together into a readable file, which you can rely on for measuring how satisfied your guests are.

Use your own statistics to find your weak sides, work on them; and never lose a guest.

Before we carry on to a plan, I would like to mention one more thing that I didn’t mention in the previous chapters.

The matter is related to both service and guest impression. It is not other but phone etiquette. Some view it as obvious parts of service, others, unfortunately, do not.

Phone etiquette can be laid out in many ways, but the main point is to be polite, to bring out the most information out of a call and to make sure the guests wants to come and visit you after the phone call.

Make sure your stuff knows how to introduce themselves and your business over the phone. Make sure they know how to handle phone calls, by writing down full examples of different phone conversations. Teach how to ask guests for their name and how to listen to what they say. It is often that people are being polite over the phone, but after the conversation, don’t know what to do next.

Out in the early stages, phone calls must be followed up upon and viewed as cases to see whether the person talking over the phone was successful in making the guest feel comfortable and did he solve the problem the guest had.
It is also good practice, to pretend you are a guest and phone your own staff or have secret callers.

Basic standards of phone etiquette include politeness, calmness, goodwill and being able to solve the problem if one arises.

To succeed we must make a plan that we will follow. To make that plan, you must understand your product. Someone might think at this stage, that there is nothing easier.

If you already work in this field, then you surely understand what you are dealing with, right?

Wrong. Not a single expert that spends years working within the field can know more about your business than yourself if you spend time working in it. Only you know what you want to achieve and how the final product will look.

You must realise your final task and then begin to study the product you are selling. Service, accommodation, food and so on. It does not matter.

You must learn everything you can about your product and understand how to handle it. One of the ways to achieve this task is to read this book of course. Another is to go out there and research any information that you find. When you did so, you can now apply that information to your own tasks and make a plan.

Having a well thought out plan means that you can list down everything you need to make to achieve success. It can start with an idea, move to a business plan, budgeting, a list of SOP’s and a well thought out diagram that considers all aspects of the business.

Those diagrams must include every single aspect that you are able to think about. Starting with building and budgeting, repair work and feeding the staff, and moving to running the business and finding every depth of any spending aspect.

That’s said, those diagrams must also include any pieces of training, hiring, marketing, menus, prices, and ideas and so on and so forth.

The more you think out how you will achieve success then easier it will be achieved, of course considering that you will work on all those aspects.

And of course we are in the hospitality business and no success comes without service. You can have all the best plans in the world, but without understanding what service is, your plans won’t work fully.

The understanding of what service is has been reviewed by many books and experts. I particularly agree with most of them, but the closest to reality can be viewed easier if broken down into the following first letters of the word itself.

S – is for smile; what can of service will you bring if you don’t put your best smile on in the morning? The smile is our best friend; consider teaching people to smile, consider reading basic psychology to understand that smiling brings out the best in us, both physically and mentally.

E – is for eye contact and body language; Every person that has served someone knows best to find the correct eye contact, it means not to stare at a guest, but to find that golden middle where you are in direct contact with the person by catching their eyesight. Your body language has to be open and friendly, no gestures that can put a guest off or aggressive gestures are welcome.

R – is for respect the guest; remember the guest is always right. He is the one that we are providing the service for, not vice-versa. Keep in mind that, no matter of age and other factors, the guest is someone e must respect and speak very politely towards.

V – is for valuing your job; not a single happy, smiling, the most helpful person in the world can provide good service, unless he values himself. Consider hiring people that understand the importance of the work they are doing. Make sure people are valued by you for their good work.

I – is for initiate guest contact; the guest is after all not the host! You are the host, and it is up to you to initiate any first contact. Whether at a reception desk or a bar, smile to the guest; make sure you let him know, you have noticed him. Make the first move and ask the guest how you may help him.

C – is for creative service; possibly the most important letter. Be sure that your service is different to others; you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. But you can add those extra small things to each guest to make him feel special. It can be a glass of water on a hot day or anything else that comes to your mind. As it says – be creative.

E – is for end with words of thankfulness; rather obvious, but this is what comes at the end. We already spoke about this in one of the previous chapters. So make sure you learn how to do it.

Hereby we conclude the first part of the book. The most important points were to take the goodwill cup of what hospitality is and to understand it. Make sure that you find the correct staff that share your goal and make sure that you train and treat them correctly.

Hospitality can be rewarding if you are willing to succeed.

Before we skip on to more detail, let us look in the following part of the book on a career path that you can pick in the hospitality field and how to develop yourself on that path.

---

Follow me @serejandmyself

Image Credit - 1 ; 2 ; 3; 4 ; 5