Improvements for the Restaurant Service Delivery - Coursework Example

?Restaurant Service Delivery It is inaccurate for people to posit that products are the only ones that can be designed when considering improving theworth of a business enterprise. Research has confirmed that organisations are suffering widespread dwindling of customer loyalty due to offering of poorly designed services. This paper describes, suggests and analyses improvements for the restaurant service delivery. Some of the services offered by restaurants include secure on-site parking services, in-house laundry services and dry cleaning services, transfer services to and from transport terminals upon request, spacious lounges and TV rooms and assistance with any bookings such as car rentals, beauty salons and hair dressers. Customer loyalty has severely been affected in the restaurant industry owing to the negative effects of financial crisis and the changing patterns of food and diet. Therefore, restaurants have an obligation of leveraging their service to ensure that they continue arresting the customer trust and loyalty (Hummel and Murphy, 2011:265-272). The restaurant industry has recently evolved and changed leading to the creation of improved products and services. The evolvement is related to the advancement in technology, expansion into new lines of service and varieties and consolidation of the industry. Time management is crucial in ensuring efficiency of restaurant services as the restaurants are only busy during the pick hours. The main components of the restaurant’s service blue print include customer actions, onstage (visible contact staff actions), backstage (invisible contact staff actions), support actions and physical evidence (Bitner, Ostrom and Morgan, 2007). The physical evidence component of the restaurant service blue print include the restaurant exterior parking lot, entry way, the interior design, the host or hostess bay, the waiting area, other customer waiting, menu, drinks, food and food presentation, being offered the bail, hostess stand, entry way, parking and restaurant exterior. The customer actions include arriving at the restaurant, walking in, putting the name on the wait list, sitting and waiting, proceeding to the table and being offered drinks and foods, receiving drinks, receiving the foods to eat, being offered the bill, paying the bill and leaving the restaurant. The contact employee on stage greets the customer, identifies their names, calls the customer’s name and shows them tables, takes the drinks and food orders, delivers the drinks, delivers food and processes bills. The back stage employee places order in the kitchen, food orders and processes payment. The support processes include the waiting list, preparation of drinks, cooking food, registration system and informing waiter. Some of the points of failure in the restaurant service delivery include lack of parking space, inefficiency in the waiting area and host/hostess bay; inefficient reservation time and also customers do not make appointments correctly; repletion area and waiting time; adequate consultation and bill accuracy (Ching and Ho, 2009:460-474). The parking situation at the restaurant is the potential challenge. The location of the restaurant at the centre of an urban settlement makes it lack adequate parking space. The available parking space is characterised by long waits. The location is also characterised by widespread lack of parking space that discourages most of the customers, making them abandon the restaurant services. Another crucial weakness is the customer service offered at the waiting area. The waiting area in any restaurant is the face of the business and any malpractices that do not please the customer have far reaching negative effects on them. An inefficient service delivery at the front desk may taint and downgrade the rest of the services offered in the restaurant. The inefficiency of the front desk is normally related to the waiting time and the reception area. Any lateness in the bookings may tamper with the daily schedules of the clients. The waiting area should always be kept neat and tidy. This assures customers that the restaurant services they are yearning for adhere to the required safety standards. Success in restaurant service delivery requires all bookings and new arrivals to be handled and maintained accurately. Making wrong bookings or the appointment booker making wrong entries such as date and time can culminate into poor delivery of services and lack of customer satisfaction. Another fail point may emanate from the action of the restaurant enterprise not drafting the correct bail; normally overvalued. This creates distrust among customers. If the customers cannot trust the restaurant with their money, then they cannot seek their services again. The customers should be made confident that money mistakes will not occur upon seeking the restaurant services. The last fail point emanates from ineffective consultations. If the customer care department cannot listen to the customer’s needs accurately, wrong services will be offered. This will waste time as most of the customers will decline and demand for correct services or demand a refund. Instead of correcting mistakes, which is expensive, the restaurant staff should keenly listen to the customer’s needs and address them accordingly. Bad reputation drives away customers making the restaurant suffer the agony of adopting remarketing strategies to attract customers again. Determination of service quality based on the SERVQUAL model involves the focus on a range of items. According to Gazzoli, Hancer and Park (2010:56-77), the first dimension involves focus on tangibles. This ensures that the restaurant has modern equipments, the physical infrastructure is attractive, employees are neat and the equipments for service delivery are visually appealing. The second dimension is empathy that involves focus on whether the restaurant management gives customers individual attention; staffs give the customers personal attention; the management understands the specific needs of customers; the operation hours are convenient to the customer; and all the staff members prioritize the customer interests. The third dimension is reliability. This involves determining whether the restaurant adheres to the promises offered to customers; the records contain errors; the restaurant shows sincere interest of solving customer problems; the services are delivered upon promise or if the restaurant performs the service efficiently at the first time. Responsiveness dimension focuses on whether the restaurants informs customers on when the service will be performed; the restaurant staff provides prompt services to customers; the staff members are willing to assist customers; and they are never busy with other roles apart from the ones that ensures customer satisfaction. The last dimension is assurance. This involves focuses on whether the employee behaviour instils confidence among customers; employees are capable of efficiently responding to customer queries; they portray courtesy; and whether customers feel safe while undertaking transactions with the restaurant staff. Walk-through audit is a customer-focused survey carried out to identify areas of customer satisfaction that requires improvement. The customer experience is assessed through direct interaction with the customers through ascertaining their feelings on the experience of their visitation. The use of Walk-through audit in the restaurant business is efficient because customers can provide finer details that the SERVQUAL model may fail to identify. Addressing the parking issue is difficult although the restaurant can invest in purchasing a additional parking space near the facility. An additional parking space is more viable because the restaurant cannot regulate the number of customers visiting the facility; otherwise, they will lose them. The restaurant can also consider the possibility moving to a new area in a spacious and serene environment but close to the customer base to curb inadequacies related to distance. The staff should be able to manage time effectively to ensure constant and consistent efficiency in service delivery (Lewis and Brown, 2003). Avoiding the front desk inefficiencies should involve hiring qualified staff who should take bookings complete with the required details. Such details include full names of the customer, desired services and the correct time details. The existing employees should be trained on the new developments in the restaurant business to enhance improvement. The waiting area staff should be encouraged to double check their duties while reporting in or out to minimise errors. Caution should be taken while hiring front desk workers as some skills cannot be attained through training, for instance, courtesy which is inherent among people and shaped by life experiences. Every customer should be given personal attention. Every staff member should inquire about the customer needs without rushing. Although it would be unrealistic to pressure the staff avoid mistakes, they should apply minimising techniques to curb inefficiency. Creative solutions should always be applied in case mistakes occur. Any mistake should be handled by all staff members for a long-lasting and effective solution. The modern global business environment requires restaurants and other business enterprises to apply technology in ensuring competitiveness. Improvement in a financial transaction can be ensured through the application of point of sale systems (POS). POS systems can assist in making managerial roles such as recording inventory counts and labour costs in an accurate and reliable way. The POS systems occur in the form of order-entry touch screeds, credit card readers, kitchen display systems and handheld inventory systems. Financial software is also extremely crucial in the organisation of the financial data and creation of accurate reports related to inventories, purchase, expenses, theoretical and actual usage, payroll information and labour hours. Restaurant pagers can be used to communicate with guests once a table becomes available. Pagers give customers the autonomy to wait outside for the table to become vacant without confusing the staff. Some of the varieties of the paging technologies include coaster pager, paddle pager and cell phone paging. Creation of ambience is crucial in attracting customers as well as ensuring a favourable working environment. Regulation of the internal temperatures can be ensured through installation of a programmable thermostat. Lighting technology involves the use of energy saving devices with the capacity to provide varieties of lighting needs to the customers e.g. replacing incandescent with compact fluorescent light. The overall serenity restaurant is enhanced by installing modern music systems. The most eminent technology applied in promoting business through marketing is the internet technology (Sashi, 2012). Strategic managers should apply the social media and online reviews to market their services. Application of technology in the restaurant will improve the management’s ability to oversee the supply in management process more effectively. The supply chain of the restaurant includes all the processes that ensure attainment of customer satisfaction. Technological improvements will affect how the restaurant’s supply chain will interact with consumers. Customers are digitally connected and normally dialled in the restaurant portal ready to receive immediate responses to their queries. This has made the restaurant’s supply chain more transparent as well as improved the chain links. Therefore, technological improvements will aid in promoting productivity. The customer experience will also be improved as they are provided with real time on demand information updates. Conclusion The essay is a discussion of the service delivery in the restaurant business. Some of the avenues of failure include lack of parking space, inefficiency in the waiting area and host/hostess bay and ineffective reservation time among others. Some of the strategies that can be applied in addressing the fail points include expanding the parking area, employee training and marketing among other factors. Technology such as point of sale systems and pagers can be used to promote performance. References Bitner, M.J., Ostrom, A.L. & Morgan, F.N. (2007) Service blueprint: a practical technique for service innovation centre for service leadership, Arizona State University. Ching, Y.T.E. & Ho, S.C. (2009) ‘Service Quality in the Hotel Industry’ Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 460-474. Gazzoli, G., Hancer, M. & Park, Y. (2010) ‘The Role and Effect of Job Satisfaction and Empowerment on Customers' Perception of Service Quality: a Study in the Restaurant Industry’ Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 56-77. Hummel, E. & Murphy, K.S. (2011) ‘Using service blueprinting to analyse restaurant service efficiency’ Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 265-272. Lewis, C. & Brown, D.R. (2003) Controlling restaurant & food service operating costs, Ocala, Fla, Atlantic Pub. Group. Sashi, C.M. (2012) ‘Customer engagement, buyer-seller relationships, and social media’ Management Decision, vol. 50, pp. 253-272. Read More