Examples of Good Service in the Restaurant

No matter how tasty your menu, customers won't come back if they have bad experiences with your customer service. For this reason, training employees to offer good customer service can help you drive sales. According to the National Restaurant Association, the first step to opening a restaurant that offers great customer service is hiring people who love to serve. After that, you train them how to serve by showing them examples of great customer service and explaining how they can mimic those examples.

 

Being Prompt

Being prompt doesn't mean rushing or hovering, but it does mean taking care of customers' needs in an appropriate time frame. Having to wait 10 or even five minutes for drink refills, butter, sauce or the check can quickly make a good dining experience turn sour. Customers can feel awkward when wondering if they should remind their servers about the request. They may even eat food without the proper condiments or a beverage -- something no restaurant owner wants. Restaurant owners can encourage their employees to offer prompt service by asking them to keep lists of customer needs or to care for one customer before moving on to the next.

Being Friendly

Good service in the restaurant industry means friendly, welcoming service. A restaurant owner should not strive to avoid bad service, but she should strive to encourage the exceptional service that occurs when service workers take a genuine interest in their customers. For example, waiters and hosts might ask customers about their day, help them make food choices and give customers compliments. Restaurant owners can encourage this kind of good service by honoring employees who are exceptionally gifted in this area and having them train others.

Related Reading: Making People Feel Welcome in a Restaurant

Being Available

Sometimes, good customer service simply means being available. Customers who can see managers, hosts and waitstaff are more likely to give employees the opportunity to provide good customer service by making requests. Many diners are hesitant to actually walk into the bar or to the counter to ask for something, and a customer should never have to shout into the kitchen. Just by being visible, you make customers feel they are having a better experience because they know if they need something, you're right there, available to help.

Being Exceptional

Customers can get good food and decent customer service almost anywhere. What will set your restaurant apart is the degree to which you are willing to go above and beyond to be exceptional. Restaurant employees can practice this kind of customer service by being willing to make special creations for guests, offering them drinks to go, bringing mints after dinner and engaging in other little practices that show they are going above and beyond the competition.