Lacking Service

It happened again. Of course it really isn't any big surprise. Service is so bad in so many places that it is what people expect, no matter where they go.

Today I had a small snack and a bottle of water at a nice little place in town. I had a book with me to just sit in a quiet corner and read. That was not a problem, the place was quiet and the chair was quite comfortable. The service, on the other hand, was lacking. I stood there for over five minutes before the girl working even bothered to look at me and say she would be with me in a moment. I know it as five minutes because I have a habit of looking at my watch. Comes from years of watching and timing my own staff. She could see me, I watched her make up three fancy drinks for customers waiting outside the drive through window. If I had a piece of paper to wad up I could have gently tossed it and it would have made contact. I say this without fear of exaggeration. I would never do that, she was that close to me that I could have.

When she did notice me she rang up my purchase and walked away to do some other work. No 'thank you', no 'have a nice day', just turned away.

With service so bad in so many places it really doesn't take very much to stand out. Little, simple, easy things can make all the difference you need to be the best in your guest's (customer's) eyes. So, why not do it?

Will Maguire

Hospitality is Kindness

An online dictionary, Wordnet by Princeton University, gives a definition for hospitality that I like. Hospitality is “kindness in welcoming guests or strangers.” For most of us, most of the time, the guests who come to our hotels are strangers to us. By using the one simple word, kindness, we find hospitality described in an easy to remember form that all of us can understand. We can approach any guest contact situation with kindness. I find that the word kindness evokes a pleasant and positive feeling for people when they hear it. To apply kindness to hospitality really helps anybody understand what is meant by hospitable service.

Extra Special service does not mean elaborate service.

Good service doesn't get you any extra points. Providing good service is simply giving the guest, or customer, exactly what they expected. They are pleased, they are happy, but they got what they feel they should have gotten in terms of the service. Essentially, nothing to write home about.

Bad service will give the guest plenty to write home about. Bad service gives the guest a story to tell, and they will tell the story over and over. Poor service has the same effect, they will tell the story.

To make extra points, with the guest and also on the service scores, you need to give extra special service. You still want the guest to tell the story, but you want it to be a story about how great you are. This extra special service doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just as long as it is special. Give your guest an extra touch that is special for them.

Stephanie is one example. She went across the street to purchase a news paper for a guest. The hotel provided the USA Today for every guest, but this guest wanted the Wall Street Journal. Stephanie ran across the street and bought the Journal for him and delivered it to him in the restaurant while he was having breakfast.

What Stephanie did was nothing elaborate but it as special and it made that guest feel special. What she did wasn't expensive, it didn't break the bank, but it meant a great deal to the reputation of the hotel.

Did we get extra points? We sure did, and some extra business as well from that guest's company.

Book Update

My book, X-cellent Guest Service, What Every Hotel Should Know About Serving Generation X, is currently in the edit process. Because I am very limited on funds, this process will take some time.

A friend told me long ago that you never edit you own work. So I have asked some friends and family to read through my manuscript and give me their thoughts or corrections. I am grateful to them for doing this, since it saves me money, but they do have lives. It will take time for them to get around to my book.

As soon as the book is ready, I will make an announcement here.

Thoughtful Young Man

A young man came to the door yesterday. He introduced himself, handed me a half sheet of paper, and explained the reason for his visit. I thought I was in for a sales pitch of some kind, maybe the local high school is doing a fund raiser, or maybe he wants me to subscribe to magazines, but I was wrong.

The reason for his visit was to let me know he was having a party in a couple of days and said he would do his best to keep the noise level down, but if the party got a little too loud his phone number was on the paper he gave me and he said to call him right away. He just wanted to make sure the neighbors were aware of the party and that he cared about his neighbors.

Well, needless to say, I was impressed with this thoughtful young man. Because of his foresight and his concern for his neighbors, I don't care how loud they get, I will allow him his fun. The fact he took the initiative to type out and print his little notice, and to walk door to door in order to distribute them really tells me a lot about him and the level of responsibility he feels for the community.

If he were to apply for a job with my company, and if I had an opening, I would hire him. He has shown me a very good character. We need more responsible young people like him.

Tanner, I hope you have a wonderful birthday party.

Who ever's Next

One thing to remember when providing service is the choice of words we use. Some words can come across as rude or surly to others, even though we don't realize it when we speak.

My mother was an English teacher and I grew up having y grammar corrected on a regular basis. As I write I can hear her voice in the back of my head correcting me when I use poor English. She left this world six years ago, but I still hear her.

Anyway, today I went to a coffee shop and had to wait in line. As the person in front of me got served the girl at the counter said "I can help who ever's next." My thought was she may be able to, I am sure she 'can' help, but does she want to? And, I am here to spend some money, I am the customer, I don't like being refered to as 'who ever.' (My mother's voice pops into my head when others use poor English as well.)

I don't think the girl at the coffee shop meant to be surly, she probably had no idea how she came across. It would have been better to say "May I help the next person in line, please?"

Managers: create simple scripts for your employees to use. Make them easy to remember and use positive reinforcement to encourage your employees to get in the habit of saying the right thing. I am positive this one step will improve your service scores. it can't hurt, it can only help.

People in Hospitality

I just started a Google Group called People in Hospitality.

The intent is to provide a place where people in the hospitality industry can share thoughts, ideas, and stories as well as help each other improve.

http://groups.google.ca/group/people-in-hospitality

Same People, Different Standards

Had my dinner at another burger joint tonight. Yeah, yeah, I know, not healthy. I wasn’t in the mood to cook and just wanted something quick. Besides, I was in the mood for a burger and fries.

The staff working at this burger place was very good. They were friendly, they smiled, the place was clean (and I mean really clean). What some might find surprising is that the staff was mostly young people. I would guess high school age boys and girls with one woman supervisor, I could not see into the kitchen so I don’t know what they looked like back there.

Other burger places in town, including the very famous one with the golden things on the sign, employ young people as well. But, the service doesn’t quite meet up with one’s expectations for minimum service and the place always seems in need of a bit of cleaning no matter when I walk in. It might be that because of what I do my standards for minimum service may be slightly higher than the average person. I really don’t think that is the case as I observe the reactions of other customers.

Anyway, why are there such differences between these two burger places? Why do the workers, of the same age, seem to be on such opposite ends of the service spectrum? Is it because most young people are lazy workers and don’t really care?

I believe the answer is in the management. The inspiration, the guidance, the support, the training, and the re-enforcement these young people get, or don’t get as the case may be. It is the leadership that makes the difference. As I read in a book by J. Donald Walters, The Art of Leadership, “Too much attention is given to the position rather than the purpose of leadership.” And who is it that gives all this misplaced attention? The leader.

To read more about the purpose of leadership, go to THIS PAGE on my website.

Rationalize or Rational Lies?

I recently listened to a telephone interview Bill Harris of Holosync had with John Assaraf of One Coach. In the interview John said something that caught my attention. He said that early in his career, when he was struggling and looking at his failure or mistakes, he began to realize that as he was rationalizing why things went wrong or why he couldn’t do things, he was telling himself rational lies as to why he couldn’t do things.

How many times do we think of something we would like to achieve, but never accomplish them because we rationalize why we can’t do it? How much of the rationalization is really rational lies to ourselves?

The key here, I believe, is to focus on the end result, the goal you want to reach and the “how can I?” questions instead of the “why can’t I?” questions. Keep your mind centered and focused on the outcome, the end result you desire, everything else will move in that direction.

The way to achieve something is a three step process. First is to know what you want (the end result), second is to know what you need to do to get what you want (the “how can I?” part), and third is to do what you need to do to get what you want (take action, do it). I have seen this formula described in many different ways and in many different self-help books as well as business books. If so many experts give the same basic principles and advice, it must be working for them and those they teach.

1- What do I want?

2- How can I do it?

3- Do it, take action.

Tips for better Tips

I joined a friend of mine for lunch today.

We had a very nice meal and the service was just fine. Nothing extra special and nothing horrible. The service was perfectly fine (I know that the word 'fine' can be dangerous in certain situations, but here I mean it was just fine) and the tip I intended to leave would have been the typical 15%.

The problem was that the bill came to $29 and I figured 15% would be about $4.5o and I was willing to give the server $5 for the tip. I placed $40 in the check presenter and waited for change. She brought the check presenter back with a $10 bill as change.

If it wasn't for the loose change in my pocket and my friend's pocket she almost had no tip at all. Between the two of us we came up with the $4.50 from our pockets. I was not about to leave a $10 tip, that would have been a little over %30. That was too much for service that was just fine.

If the server had brought me two $5 bills instead of the $10 bill she would have had an extra $0.50 in her tip. If she did that with every customer and if she had eight tables per hour, I would estimate that during a normal lunch period (two hours) she could have made an extra $8. Spread that over a regular work week she would have $40 extra per week, $2,080 extra by the end of the year. This is just based on lunch time only, think what more she could make during a dinner shift as well. $2,080 would pay for a pretty nice vacation, all for an extra $0.50 per table on her tips.

When making change for your customers in restaurants, servers need to make change with the lowest denomination as they can without going so low that they might get a slightly lower tip. The average customer will be willing to round up to a dollar if the service was considered slightly better than average, and it is not hard to be better than average when the average service these days is as bad as it is in most places.

Give change that makes it easier for the customer to leave a slightly higher tip, but don't over do it. Think if the customer rounds up the tip to the nearest dollar, what change would be best to make that amount, and make sure they have that in the change, perfectly.

Look at the Tip Chart on my website to see what customers may leave for a rounded tip.

Service Standards

I am noticing what seems to be an increase in bad service. Or maybe the better way to say it is a decrease in quality service. Either way you look at it, people working in the service related industries are just not living up to what their real jobs are. Sure they do their "job" and get the customer what they want, but there is very little service, as in serving, to the customer.

What made me think about this today is I went with my friend Eugene for coffee. We went to a different place just for a change of pace. The girl that served us did her job and got our muffins, Eugene's coffee, and my bottle of water. She went through the motions and did what she was supposed to do. Later, while we were enjoying the light jazz music playing, pleasant conversation, and watching people walk past the window outside, she came out to clear two coffee cups from a table next to ours. That was it. She just came to get those two coffee cups. She did not look or smile at us, she did not offer to take away our empty plates, she made no effort what so ever to acknowledge we were anywhere near her. On our way out the door I looked at her behind the counter and smiled to her, she glared at me, not offering any sort of "have a nice day," and continued her conversation with another employee. Eugene commented, as we got in the car, that he now knows why the parking lot was so empty. I thought of the people, potential customers, walking past the window.

To contrast this, at lunch time we went to another place and the girl there was very friendly. She offered us choices and included positive comments and compliments on what items she had available, which wasn't very much. We made our choice and enjoyed a nice, tasty hotdog and soda for our lunch. As we left, even though we were about fifteen feet away from here, she looked over the shoulder of an employee she was talking to and actually shouted in our direction, "have a good afternoon, guys!" Can you guess where we will go again and where we will never do business again?

The lesson I learned today?
Up scale, trendy coffee house... No.
Cheap hotdog and burger joint... Yes!

Quality of service is much more important than whatever items you are selling.