Analysis: The Olive Garden Restaurants - Case Study Example

?Case Analysis: The Olive Garden Restaurants The service industries are highly dependent on the staff training and the way the business is managed. Restaurant industry is one of the industries which require closer and stronger communication and hospitality skills in the employees. The communication between customers and employees is direct and more frequent than in any other business. The customers directly communicate and interact with the employees; hence, restaurant and other service businesses require closer attention and more detailed policies and trainings for the employees to tackle customer moods, complaints and expectations. Keeping in view these factors, the business under consideration lacks a number of important elements to run a successful hotel/restaurant. The food quality, timeliness, cleanliness and behaviors of staff are the most welcomed features in such a business. The most prominent problems in the case relating to the business and communication involve the following: Timeliness: The hotel and food industry require more attention towards the timeliness than any other industry (Russell & Taylor 2005). Olive Garden Restaurants are well known and obviously, it is not a frequent incident that Mr. Jones experienced as he mentions his likeness towards the Olive Garden restaurants. If we look closely, most of the complaints of Mr. Jones are somehow related to the late responses, services or long waiting time. Customer Dissatisfaction: The failure of business management is quite evident by the fact that a few customers were observed to be seated in the restaurant for dinner timings which should earn the business high revenues. The reason behind this failure of earning good revenues in the peak business hours clearly is the dissatisfaction of customers. There is a need to identify and incorporate issues in the business management and policies to increase customer satisfaction and, as a result, business revenues. Greeting and Seating: It is important to understand that running a restaurant requires more than a simple structure of serving and get payment. The restaurant industry is really competitive in terms of quality of food, service and taste. There is a need to properly manage different levels of restaurant by allocating sufficient staff at each level to greet, direct towards proper seating and take orders from the customers (Barrows & Powers 2008). The Olive Garden Restaurants lack trained staff for greeting the customer on their arrival and at the time they leave. Restaurant industry requires customers to have welcoming attitudes from the staff and urge them to visit the restaurant again. However, the behavior of the manager as well as other staff at Olive Garden Restaurant was quite unpleasant and inhospitable. Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Skills: The communication techniques involve friendly tone, soft voice, pleasing words and respectable speech to welcome and serve the customers in any business. However, the Olive garden Restaurants lack most of these skills. The workers from the top to the bottom organizational level are either showing noninterest in the customers or harsh words (as shown by the manager). The non-verbal communication includes the gestures, postures, eye movements, facial expressions and so on. The unwelcoming facial expressions and tones as observed by Mr. Jones claiming the annoyance of the hostess and behavior of the manager are the pitfalls in the communication skills at Olive garden Restaurant. This is one of the biggest and devastating issues related to Olive garden restaurant. Cleanliness: Restaurant and food industries require clean and high quality food services to be provided than is the requirement in other manufacturing and service industries. People’s health is dependent on the food they eat, hence, restaurants require a properly clean dining in place for the customers along with a well trained staff to clean up and change the used tableware (Brown 2003). Olive Garden Restaurants showed a careless attitude towards this factor by taking Mr. Jones to a table which is not cleaned. Recommendations Keeping the issues in view, it should be noticed that the particular branch of Olive Garden Restaurants require some major changes to make the business profitable. The attitudes observed in the restaurant may leave negative impact on the customer about Olive garden restaurants and they may, like Mr. Jones, avoid visiting these restaurants again. Keeping the competitive environment of restaurant industry in view, Olive Garden Restaurants are recommended to review the performance of the business at this particular branch and evaluate the reasons behind fewer revenues than other divisions. The most important part of the changes required include staff training in communicating and interacting with the customers. The employees should be trained to welcome and greet customers with a friendly and more respectable manner than leaving them wander around the restaurant premises to find someone for their service. The staff needs to be motivated to reach the customer table within the shortest time to provide them with menus as per the requirements. It should be noted here that Mr. Jones was not provided with the children’s menus. Employees should be directed clearly on keeping the customers at ease rather than forcing them to dine in at a particular seat regardless of the problems that the customers may face as was the case with Mr. Jones’s father. Different staff should be allocated with different responsibilities. There is a need to allocate responsibilities in different groups of staff to manage the restaurant business in a better manner. Separate staff is required for greeting and seating arrangements of the customers, cleaning of tables and floor as the customer leaves also requires staff’s attention, waiters and waitresses need to be motivated to serve the customers as quick as possible and so on. The motivation of staff may be enhanced by offering them commission per table served by the employee. Moreover, in order to know the difficulties that the customers face, the staff needs to be trained to ask for their feedbacks and the customer comment cards should be reviewed often by the managers and higher level staff to make changes and meet expectations of the staff. The quality of food is one of the major factors that suggest the success or failure of the restaurant business. The food should be fresh, tasty, properly served and up to the expectations of the customers. Mr. Jones received cold food with an unavailability of wine as it was out of stock. This clearly left an awful impression on him supported by the manager’s uninterested behavior to notice and correct the mistakes. The blaming and rude attitude of the manager led Mr. Jones leave the restaurant dissatisfied with a thought of never visiting it again. The attitude of staff should be polite and tolerant in order to deal with a dissatisfied customer. The food quality needs to be improved along with the timeliness of taking orders and serving meals accurately. It is probable that the restaurant will be better run if the issues are properly accounted for and changes made to attract more customers and retain the existing ones. Bibliography Russell, R. S., & Taylor, B. W. (2005). Operations management: Quality and competitiveness in a global environment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Barrows, C. W., Powers, T. F., & Powers, T. F. (2008).Introduction to management in the hospitality industry. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Brown, D. R. (2003). The restaurant manager's handbook: How to set up, operate, and manage a financially successful food service operation. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Pub. Group. Read More