On the Front Lines of Service

As the New Year begins it is very common to think about how we can better market our businesses. It turns out that the very best marketing in our industry occurs tableside, along the cafeteria line and at the front desk! It's always been and always will be about how we treat our guests---This month's quick tips on service: Three things your servers and front line personnel can do to create guests for life!  

• Create Comfort-from the very beginning of the relationship. Examples-simple things like genuine conversation, checking in to see how the meal or visit is going and asking if there is anything else that can be done to make their visit memorable all help to create comfort.

• Acts of Kindness-encourage and give your associates the permission to deliver small acts of kindness during the meal or the guest's stay. Example-showing up tableside with a B+B plate size sample of an item that the guest had expressed an interest in when ordering.

• Sense of Humor-Allow your staff to be themselves and to use their natural sense of humor to deal with missteps or situations that need to be solved. If your staff is having fun solving problems--it's a guarantee that your guests will too!  Guests that have fun always come back. In your operation's guest service consider 2004 the Year of Front Line Marketing.

Managers as Coaches-In our last issue we discovered that the most effective thing a unit manager can do is to develop their replacement. Effective coaches, whether on the athletic field or in a business setting, include the following in their daily leadership style:

• Step One-Spell out very clearly the specific expectations for advancement. List and work on the specific skills needed for your assistants to get to the next level.
• Step Two-Purposely include these skills and the techniques for mastering them in the day-to-day activity of running the business.  
• Step Three-Allow those you are coaching to practice the techniques in a safe environment where they can make mistakes without everyone in the house knowing it.
• Step Four-Mentor and nurture those you coach by helping them effectively use the new skills. Let them know you are checking their work and let them know how they are performing.

Leadership Words of Wisdom-Don't base promotion just on bottom line performance but on how well the shop can run without the boss being there. In other words, has the manager that's up for promotion prepared those coming up to take over and effectively run the business? This seems like a good subject to discuss at your next Area Director's meeting! 

Thanks for the feed back on last issue's concept of Walking the Path to control costs. This month's Point of Profit is focused on controlling food cost. As you begin the new year check the following three things and make sure they are in place: 

• Portion Size-determine and/or double check then publish for all to see and follow the portion size for each and every menued item--from appetizer through dessert.
• Regular Costing-When was the last time you calculated the theoretical food cost for each item on your menu? This should be a regular practice--at least once per month!
• Winners and Losers-On a weekly basis, based on ingredient prices for the week--identify the items that should be focused on and items that can be used more frequently because of their good value. Example-Sometimes because we fall into a routine we continue to use fresh raspberries for garniture even when that week they are costing us $54 a flat.

A special thanks to all our industry friends that participated in our Thanksgiving Cares program in November. Thanks to your involvement and the help of our young Mentor Cares volunteers we were able to serve over 600 families at Thanksgiving. This program has grown tremendously over the last five years. To read about this two-day event and see photos click on www.leadershipcares.org 

We will be holding our leadership workshops over the next few months and our annual Mentor Cares Career Day will be held this Spring in the Washington D.C. area. Drop us an email at: ron@leadershipcares.org  to let us know if you would like to become involved.

We are looking for partners to expand our Leadership Cares programs into major cities across the U.S. We feel strongly that this workforce development program is a major solution to the attraction and retention dilemma we face in a variety of industries. Email us at leaders@leadershipcares.org  to explore how we can partner on this vision.