formula follows the acronym BLAST:
Believe the customer, Listen to them, Act
on the complaint, Satisfy them and Thank
them.
food, equipment, supplies, etc? At our
website (Sullivision.com) you can order
a simple poster for your crew that shows
the profit on the dollar or our best-selling
“What We Get Paid For”poster and DVD
that will teach them how the foodservice
business works.
7. A public work area that is not spotless. You sell more in a clean restaurant,
and don’t ever think that customers don’t
notice and talk about it. Our work areas
should be spotless—Disney-clean—
always and all ways. Ray Kroc, McDonald’s original CEO was fanatical about
cleanliness and said:“Clean the corners
and the middle will take care of itself.”
9. Over-looking teachable moments.
8. Failing to teach the team WHY. Way
too many foodservice owners and
managers tell their teams what to do and
how to do it instead of first teaching WHY
we do it. Case in point: we constantly
train the team to suggest appetizers,
beverages, dessert…but how many of
us have ever spent an equal amount of
time explaining why we sell? When was
the last time you explained Foodservice
Economics 101 to your crew? Do they
know the average profit on the dollar is
less than a dime? Do they know how
much you spend on utilities, rent, napkins,
This is a common flaw among operators.
Go through the trash occasionally. Find
the bucket or bag that wasn’t completely
emptied. Point out that the extra portion
may have been the team’s raise they threw
away. Help teams to think like owners do.
10. Failing to communicate before
every shift. If you don’t give your team
specific goals before every shift they will
presume you don’t have any, and substitute their own. Is that really what you
want? Every month, set specific sales and
service goals for every single shift and
then share them with your team. A short
two minute pre-shift meeting should be
mandatory, not optional. You can download a free pre-shift meeting planning
template on our home page at
www.sullivision.com.
11. Making lots of mistakes (but never
learning from them). Messing up is
one thing, but failing to recognize the
error and learning not to make the same
mistake again is what distinguishes good
operators from great ones. At manager
meetings, identify three specific operations-related challenges from the previous
week to discuss, analyze and learn from.
It’s all about continuous improvement. As
the Japanese proverb says: One hundred
days to learn; one thousand to refine.
Bottom line? We’re only as good as
our last happy customer. Think like your
customers and focus first on eliminating
dissatisfaction. Ironically, you can stop
“giving service”and instead give the most
precious gift you can supply to a customer:
The absence of