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say, “Hey Mr. Smith, good evening,” or “Hi Mr. Smith, would you like
                                                                                to start off with a dirty martini or would you like to start off with a
                                                                                Cosmo? And we’ve got a great shrimp appetizer we’d like you to try.”
                                                                                That, to me, is gold. They’re like, man, they know who I am.


                                                                                Nick:
                                                                                That’s great advice. What about when you see a brand new customer
                                                                                in the door, or a new table of four comes in and you’ve never seen
                                                                                them before, is there anything you do differently with those people
                                                                                that are walking in the door?


                                                                                Donald:
                                                                                You want to gather information. Ask them about who they are and
                                                                                where they’re from. Are they from the area? If they’re travelling
                                                                                through, you’re probably not going to get a lot of information, but
                                                                                still, you want to build rapport. One of the biggest things about
                                                                                hospitality is that human connection again. You don’t want to be
                                                                                that cold server walking up and saying, “Hi, good evening. Welcome
         their food took like 45 minutes. What happened? Let’s talk about       to Fred’s. Can I get you something to drink from the bar?” It’s not
         this.” A lot of times when things happen in the heat of battle during   personal. You want to have that kind of interaction. You want to
         a service, people want to talk about it or hash it out right then.     build that human connection.
         That’s not the time. The time to do it is after the customers have
         left and everyone can calm down a little bit, because when you’re in   I’m a huge believer in making recommendations, and I actually teach
         that heat of battle and tempers get raised, the last thing you want    a course. It’s called NeuroSelling, where I work with the staff and
         to do is start trying to dissect what’s going on and blaming people.   teach them how to make recommendations, how to build rapport,
         Who did what? What happened?                                           and so they can actually start making that hospitality happen. That’s
                                                                                the biggest thing. When they come in, you want to be very genuine.
         Nick:                                                                  You want to be very enthusiastic, and that’s why it’s also important
         Yeah, definitely. What are a few things that you could give us as      to make sure you’re hiring the right people for your team. You have
         far as just some nice gestures that a server could do to really give   someone who is not a talker and very shy and quiet, that might not
         the customer a great experience or to make them feel welcomed?         be the best person to have on the floor.
         Obviously going up to their table smiling and all of that stuff, but do
         you have anything that you teach or that you’ve learned from others    Nick:
         that can really ‘wow’ a customer from a server’s service?              Definitely. And what about surveys? One of the things that I do
                                                                                with my marketing system is three days after we get them to opt in
         Donald:                                                                                                    online or if they sign up to our
         The thing I always do, and                                                                                 loyalty program in house, I
         what I had in my restaurant, is I                                                                          send out an email just saying,
         was a big believer in gathering             To succeed, you need to find                                   “Hey, we want to make sure
         intelligence, and maybe this                something to hold on to,                                       we provide you with a great
         comes from my military days.                                                                               experience. Would you mind
                                                     something to motivate you,                                     taking 30 seconds to fill out a

         From my military days, I like to            something to inspire you.                                      short survey so we know what
         gather intelligence, basically.                                                                            you like or don’t like?” And we
         And so I always think of when                                                                              get about 20 to 30 percent of
         guests come in, you want to                                             Tony Dorsett                       the people who actually end
         learn as much as you can about                                                                             up filling those out online or
         them, what they like and don’t                                                                             through the follow-up email.
         like. When I had my restaurant,                                                                            And we get a lot of great
         we had a VIP book, and in that                                                                             feedback from that on the
         VIP book, we had people’s names. We also had anniversaries and         types of promotions and stuff that they want, and the food specials
         birthdays written down. I knew what they liked to drink, what they     or drink specials, entertainment or whatever that might be for bars.
         liked to eat, what their preferences were. And in pre-shift, we would   We get a lot of valuable feedback, because it’s our customers telling
         go over the book, like, “Mr. Smith is coming in. Don’t forget he likes   us what they want. And that’s what the business is about, to a
         a dirty martini”. And then when you sit down with them when they       certain level. Sometimes, you’ll get these people saying they want half
         come in, how cool is it to have a server walk up to the table and      off food and dollar drinks, and you can’t run a business and your staff



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