Restaurant Training

Picture your guest giving you an unexpected gift wrapped in shiny, gold, paper with a big, red ribbon on top. How would you feel?
Now hold on to that feeling. That is exactly how you should feel when a guest complains to you-as if you are getting a gift. Why? Because guests who complain are giving you a second chance to make it right for them instead of taking their business elsewhere.
Approximately4% of disappointed guests will voice their complaint to a company. Therefore, you should be more concerned about the continued patronage from 96% of your guests who will not convey their dissatisfaction to you.
Of the guests who complain, about 95% will continue patronizing a restaurant when the complaint is resolved quickly and in their favor. However, did you know that you can actually receive stronger positive word-of-mouth advertising from successfully recovering complaints from disappointed guests as opposed to the advertising you would receive from pleased guest?
When guests complain, they are communicating some level of dissatisfaction. Many times it may be a simple matter to resolve, such as reheating soup. Other times it may call for cooking several food entrees that were incorrectly ordered or prepared.
No matter how busy you are, always take ownership and make it a priority to quickly and professionally resolve all complaints. Adopting a company attitude to always please your guests and take all complaints seriously will pay off in repeat business. If you ignore your guest concerns, they may ignore your establishment when planning their next meal out
Taking a complaint professionally, not personally, is important. Although angry guests may take their dissatisfaction out on you, they are seldom upset with you as an individual. In most cases, they may just need to vent their feelings and be acknowledged. Be sure to focus on the issue, not the delivery of the complaint. If other guests can hear the complaint, lead the dissatisfied person to a secluded area. A complaint that gets out of hand may disturb the good time of other guests.
Training your staff to professionally handle service issues is imperative. Listed below are seven steps to successfully handling complaints. Some complaints, depending on the degree (like the soup example), can be resolved in fewer than the specified seven steps. Use your best judgment in taking the necessary steps to recover complaints.
Seven steps to successfully handling
1. Listen carefully and thank the guest. Listening will help you properly identify the complaint. Listen with your eyes and your ears by observing verbal and body language. Always show sincerity and concern for the guest's feelings and thank them. For example,say, "Thank you for making us aware of this."
2. Ask questions and repeat the complaint. This will ensure that you have understood the concern properly and can act on it immediately, and correctly solve it the first time. For example,say, "Let me verify...you wanted your steak cooked medium rare...is that correct?"
3. Apologize sincerely. This shows respect for the guest's feelings. Fifty percent of service providers do not offer any apology. Always take full responsibility for the complaint, whether or not you feel it is valid or your fault. For example, you might say, "I'm sorry for the mistake...please accept my apologies"
4. Empathize with the guest. This helps the guest feel confident you are on their side and partnering to work with them. For example, say, "I understand how you feel."
5. Explain corrective action/alternatives. Place guests at ease by informing them immediately how their complaint will be resolved. For example, you might say, "I'll talk with the Chef/Cook now and have him/her prepare a new steak." Meanwhile, you may consider delivering a complimentary appetizer to the guest.
6. Promptly resolve the issue. Generally speaking, the quicker you correct a situation, the easier it will be to resolve. The longer you take to resolve an issue, the greater your run the risk that your guest's emotions will escalate, making the situation more difficult to resolve.Make every effort to quickly turn negative situations into positive ones.
7. Follow up, thank the guest, and apologize again. Follow up to ensure guests are happy and have everything they need. Thanking them and apologizing again will show appreciation for their feelings. For example, say,"Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and again, please accept our apologies."
Pam Simos, keynote speaker and founder of Five-Star Training, has more than 20 years of hospitality and restaurant training experience and a B.S. degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Since 1987, Five-Star Training has specialized in reducing costs and driving profits through training. Five-Star Training offers a full line of 20 training services for executives, managers, and staff including 15 management training seminars, keynote speaking,12 training manuals on CD, management coaching and mentoring, train-the-trainer programs, new restaurant training for startups, and business consulting. Five-Star Training is based in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Please contact Pam Simos at: Toll-free number (800) 385-7827(STAR).
Website address: http://www.five-startraining.com
E-mail address: contact-us@five-startraining.com
� Copyright 2008. Five-Star Service & Products Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Promoting a Bar or Restaurant Using Flyers and Doorknob Hangers

For many years, one of the most effective and proven ways of getting customers to come into a bar or a restaurant was through giving out handouts. The doorknob hangers whom you put in each home in the neighborhood and the flyers that you stuffed under the car's windshields were once a good way of promoting your dining establishment. In this modern and digital age, do these methods still work?
Until now, flyers and doorknob hangers still offer some great benefits. One of the good things about these advertising and marketing tools is that they are very effective and not so expensive to produce. The price of each door hanger is a bit higher than a flyer, but you can get big discounts when you order them in bulk. They are as effective as other types of modern advertising most business owners are using today but much cheaper.
Always keep in mind to produce a high quality flyer and door hanger to distribute to people around your area. You need to make sure that it contains all the important information, such as the name of your restaurant or bar, address, phone number, email address and website. It should also need to have something that customers will be interested to use it.
Most people will ignore and trash your flyers or door hangers right away once they see nothings interested on it. They will not also bother to look at it when the design is not attractive as well as the material you use for it. However, they will surely keep it when you have coupons included on the flyer or door hanger. Offer a discount when they order at your bar or restaurant or a free dessert using the coupon. Even if they don't use the coupon, they might hand it to a friend or a family member that will use it. It is very important to include coupons on your ads; otherwise, people will never read and just throw it away.
If there are problems with the restaurant or bar itself, even the most expensive and advance advertising and marketing tools available today would never help your business to succeed. Make sure that your place is welcoming and had a nice ambience to convince customers from coming back again. You also need to make sure that your establishment is equipped with the right furniture that can provide comfort and relaxing feeling while they enjoy eating their meal.
Ian Ace is an Account Manager at Maxsun Group, a leading importer and manufacturer of bar stools Philadelphia. Visit our website to learn more about Maxsun Group.
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Danbury Restaurants

If you are looking to eat out in Danbury CT, there are plenty of Danbury Restaurants to choose from regardless of your budget or food cuisine of choice. For local residents of Danbury, the majority of whom are on a modest family style budget, the available restaurants reflect precisely that. This simply means that the majority of Danbury restaurants are very reasonably priced to reflect the communities' demographics. Expensive high end dining is of course available, but these restaurants are in a minority compared to the average type of restaurants which are readily available in Danbury.

Where Is Danbury?

Just in case you are not in Danbury, or even the United States for that matter, Danbury is in Connecticut, which is in Fairfiled County. It is part of the area known as New England and in fact, still holds a lot of the traditional New England values, which is why it is such a popular place for raising families. Connecticut borders New York State as well, so this should give you a general idea of where it is. It's one of the larger cities in Connecticut, being the seventh largest with approximately 80,000 people, mostly modest families, living there.

These days, Danbury boasts a multicultural population and this is also reflected in the Danbury Restaurants. The majority though, are low to moderately priced diners which serve mostly American food and this clearly reflects the cities' demographic having over 70% white Americans in the population. The diners offer up traditional American fare for breakfast lunch and dinner but with a sprinkling of other food choices in there as well. The diners are a very popular eating option because they are reasonably informal, reasonably priced and offer a very comfortable dining environment which won't be changing any-time soon.

Danbury Mall Restaurants

The Danbury Mall, or more correctly, the Danbury Fair Mall, opened in 1986 on the site of the original Danbury Fairgrounds and provides a modern, mall style shopping environment to the Danbury Community. The original Danbury Fairgrounds was initially an agricultural fair which reflected the lifestyle of the community at that time. It now reflects the modern face of Danbury as a contemporary shopping mall, complete with a range of dining options typical of the shopping mall environment. Danbury mall restaurants range from food court style eateries through to sit down restaurants.

It's also interesting to note that even within the shopping mall style environment, the demographic of low to moderately priced eating options, still prevails. There are four, sit down, restaurant style eating establishments, which reflect the high end range of the market, while there are twelve fast food eating options and five speciality food options such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Auntie Anne's Pretzels, a chocolate shop and an ice-cream shop. The traditional diner style eating establishment which is prevalent in Danbury itself, is not reflected in the Danbury Mall Restaurants.

While we are still in the mall, the Cheesecake Factory, the Brio Tuscan Grille (Italian), Ruby Tuesday (American) and Uno Chicago Grille are the four higher end eating options with a formal sit down food service. The majority of eating options are fast food choices and include Subway, Sbarro, Pretzel Maker, Panda Express (Asian), Nathan's Famous Frankfurters, McDonalds, Famous Cajun Grill (Asian), Famous Cajun Grill, Cosimo's Brick Oven Pizza, Charley's Grilled Subs, Arby's (American) and Desert Moon Fresh Mexican Grille. So there is also a good range of cuisines available to choose from at the Danbury Mall restaurants and they all look like pretty tasty options.

The mall style shopping environment is primarily designed for shoppers, where the shopping experience might involve browsing shops and buying, or just browsing with friends. In either case, food and drink are always part of the experience so the range of dining options at Danbury Fair Mall consequently reflects this. Some people will go to the mall just to hang out and watch the world go by while their budget will always be able to buy something to eat, such as at McDonalds. For others, Starbucks is the place to see and be seen over a leisurely coffee. Danbury Mall restaurants will cater to all budgets and dining experiences within a contemporary, modern setting.

Back in down-town Danbury though, a more traditional dining experience prevails and there is also a greater range of cuisines available as well. Do you prefer wholesome American food? Danbury restaurants can provide it for you at the right price. Perhaps your taste-buds are set up for more of an international taste? Well you will have no trouble finding international cuisines in down-town Danbury as well. From Italian through to Middle Eastern flavours, Danbury has it all. You will easily find options which include Spanish,Asian, Mexican, French, American Diner of course, as well as Seafood and Vegetarian.

There are more Italian dining options in Danbury than any other nationality (apart from the all American Diners), and this clearly indicates the popularity of this type of cuisine. From low end through to high end and everywhere in between, Danbury restaurants prominently feature pizza and pasta as well as other more traditional Italian gourmet delights. This food is not only affordable for families, it suits most people's palates as well, so that Danbury is able to offer visitors and those just passing through, a very tasty dining experience which won't break the budget. It's just one of the things that makes Danbury such a good place.

So regardless of whether you prefer down-town Danbury or the contemporary experience of Danbury Fair Mall, you will find what you are looking for in Danbury restaurants. Tasty, affordable food is available to complement your shopping experience at Danbury Mall restaurants and the cuisine choices available in Danbury itself, are superb to say the least. Best of all, if Italian food is your particular favourite, Danbury restaurants dish it up in spades. You really should go there soon and prepare yourself for an extraordinary culinary experience that any foodie would love. Go and try it for yourself.

Visit http://danburyrestaurants.org/danbury-italian-restaurants for all your Danbury food options.

What is the Value of Online Restaurant Guides?

In discussions with restaurant owners we quite often get asked why they should list their restaurants on online restaurant guides (ORGs). The easy and obvious answer is that online restaurant guides such as Zagat.com, RestaurantRow.com, Urbanspoon.com, Chow.com, Metromix.com, CitySearch.com, OpenTable.com, etc., increase the online exposure of those restaurants listed in the guide. But do they? And if so, how so? And how much do they help? This is really what the owner wants to know.

The answers to these questions are multi-faceted and require knowledge in quite a few areas. No wonder restaurateurs have a hard time coming up with them. So we'll begin with the basics.

Five years ago many restaurants didn't even have a website. Or, if they did, it was rudimentary and didn't attract much traffic. Today, nearly all restaurants have websites. But a website that has no traffic is like a Lotus without an engine. It produces nothing and has diminished value. Restaurateurs, like many business owners, realize this and spend time, effort and money on building traffic to their site. This is called search engine optimization or SEO. They hire a company to optimize the site and initially they get results. The problem is that SEO is an ongoing endeavor requiring constant observation and change.

One restaurant client of ours in New Orleans has a website that gets an average of 150 hits per day. That's not bad for one restaurant. When the phrase 'New Orleans Italian Restaurants' is put into Google, the restaurant comes up first on left hand side of the page. This is the pot at the end of the rainbow in SEO isn't it? However, when the phrase, 'New Orleans Restaurants' is entered into Google, the restaurant is nowhere to be found. The same result occurs with many phrases people would use in trying to locate restaurants in New Orleans. Most restaurant owners of individual units or a small 2 to 3 unit company cannot afford to hire someone to optimize the site on a constant basis.

But even if the restaurant did spend the money to do proper SEO on their site, they still cannot compete with the ORGs. ORG's sometimes have a staff of people whose sole job it is to keep their guide coming up on the first page of Google around the country. Zagat.com, for instance, has links to every restaurant listed on the site, and links back from most. This alone propels the ORG in terms of its adherence to the criteria of the latest algorithms used by search engines. But the ORGs also have Google Ads, banner ads from restaurants, rich media content, and a whole host of SEO-friendly items. Individual or small restaurant owners lose the competition with the ORGs for the space on the search engines in most cases.

In addition, ORGs offer consumers interaction with their guide and features that individual restaurant sites cannot. Features such as the ability to write reviews, take surveys, find information about the metropolitan area, find out what else in going on in the city all make online guides an attractive place to do restaurant research. Features like these, especially the ability to write reviews, give the consumer power and satisfies their need to express their opinion.

VR National conducted a survey in the 3rd quarter of 2009 and discovered that more than 75% of consumers look for restaurants online. That number is significant but many restaurant owners might conclude that their web site will capture any potential customers looking online. However, when asked how consumers do research online we discovered that a restaurant web site is largely ineffective. Of the people that look for restaurants online over 80% use online restaurant guides versus doing a search on Google, Yahoo, Bing or another search engine. Only 18% use general search engines. And when those 18% do search on search engines, as stated above, the likelihood of a specific restaurant popping up on the first page is slim given the SEO capability of the ORGs.

So really what is happening in marketing of restaurants online? The trend is very similar to what occurred in the hotel industry over the last 10 to 15 years. We've all seen the ads for Travelocity, Priceline, Expedia, Hotels.com and other online travel agencies (OTA's). What we don't necessarily realize is that there are hundreds of OTA's that are not advertised as heavily. The value proposition to the consumer is that if they book a hotel room through one of these OTA's they'll save money. They'll also be able to book airfare, a rental car and learn a lot about the city or area they are visiting. And yes, have the ability to write reviews. Do you see the similarity? As a result, OTA's took approximately 70% of the online bookings away from the hotel web sites only to turn around and charge the hotel a fee for giving them the reservation. Hotels begrudgingly paid this fee. Today it's about a 50/50 split between consumers booking directly on a hotel website and those that do so on an OTA.

The same thing is occurring in the online marketing of restaurants. As we've described above, online restaurant guides are giving the consumer more convenience and features than the restaurants can individually. They are also charging fees to the restaurant for online reservations that come through their guide.

The trend is clear. The smart restaurant owner will embrace the change and develop excellent relationships with every major national and regional ORG and make sure they are featured on that guide if possible, have menus, photos, virtual tours and every other tool available from that guide including a link to make a reservation online.

Restaurateurs would be wise to embrace this consumer shift and get out in front of it. Otherwise they'll either find themselves playing catch up or watch their potential business go to a competitor restaurant down the street.

Dale Guiducci is the Director of Business Development at VR National, Inc. and co-owner of eStyleSense.com, an internet retail company. Mr. Guiducci is a graduate of Boston College, has over 25 years business experience and has represented companies such as T.G.I Friday's, CompUSA, Marcus & Millichap and Transoft, Inc. He currently lives in La Mesa, CA with his wife Shirley.

VR National is the leading virtual tour photography and visual media distribution company and has filmed thousands of hotels and over 900 restaurants that appear on Zagat.com and other online restaurant guides.
http://www.vrnational.com/

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