The Importance of Service Skills in Restaurants and How Poor Service Affects Repeat Business - Coursework Example

The importance of service skills in restaurants and how poor service affects repeat business Introduction While selecting a place where to have a meal, people tend to make either planned or spontaneous decisions. In case of spontaneous decisions such criteria as proximity, type of cuisine, overall interior, hygiene, and atmosphere are viewed to be the main influencers (Pun and Ho, 2001; Pratten, 2003). However, when people are planning to eat out, they also consider other aspects, varying from food quality, presentation of food, reputation, prices, and service quality. While the quality and assortment of food and beverages as well as prices play an important role in this business, guest service is also critical success factor as it often helps restaurants to stay ahead of main competitors. It is widely known that often waiters contribute to the customer’s dining experience even more than the atmosphere, décor, music and other factors (Walker, 2008). Perfectly cooked and presented on the plate food but served badly will more likely destroy all the positive emotions of customers (Pratten, 2003). On the other hand, even if there is some problem with the food (undercooked, overcooked, not fitting customer’s expectations, etc.), highly skilled server (waiter/waitress) will be able to manage the situation, making a customer to feel happy and satisfied (Pratten, 2003). The aim of this paper is to analyse how important are service skills in restaurant business and to discuss how poor service affects repeat business. The role of guest service in restaurants Restaurant industry is the service industry, where people pay for food and drinks prepared and served by other people. It is people-oriented business, where customer service is extremely important. There exist many different interpretations of the concept of service. Some researchers explain service as the process that “consists of a customer’s service experience plus the perception of the outcome of the service experience” (Johnston and Clark’s 2005 cited in Walter, Edvardsson, and Ostrom, 2010). Thus, it becomes clear that service is a more complex concept, which requires a comprehensive approach towards both the overall process of service provision and the manner of how this service perceived by the customer. While the quality of service is significant factor for all restaurants, it plays particularly vital role for fine dining restaurants, dinner houses and other premium restaurants, because excellent customer service is part of their strategy (Walker, 2008). The importance of service skills is recognized and strongly emphasized not only by strategic and operational managers but also by marketers and sales people. Nowadays, it is one of the important sales elements, known as customer relationship management. By focusing on customer relationship and service skills, restaurants have increased chances and gained greater opportunities to become profitable not allowing large budgets for media advertising (Walker, 2008). While making a choice in favour of a specific restaurant, patrons usually consider service factor (Walker, 2008). As it has been already mentioned, often waiters contribute to the customer’s dining experience even more than the atmosphere, décor, music and other factors (Walker, 2008). Therefore, it is logical to suggest that waiters and servers operating in restaurant industry have to possess some specific service skills. So what does it really mean a good server and what skills should he/she have in order to make the guest’s dining experience excellent? Walker (2008) identified five major service skills and attributes, including the following: 1. Personality – attitude and personality of a server is important as guests put strong emphasis on it 2. Team orientation – restaurant business implies a cooperation of many different people who should be a team in order to outperform (Walker, 2008). Therefore, the ability to work with others is one of the key staff requirements in food and beverage service (Cousins, Foskett, and Pennington, 2011). 3. Technical knowledge of product – through knowledge of the food and drinks is critical, as servers often act as advisors to the guests; 4. Ability to read guests and anticipate their needs – different people attend restaurants; while some want to be left alone and not be interrupted by waiters, other people want to gain maximum attention. If a server has perfect technical knowledge, but does not “feel” customers, it may result in excessive irritation and indignation on behalf of customers; 5. Knowledge of the finer points of service (Walker, 2008). By evaluating the level of service skills, it is also important to differentiate between the service sequence and the customer process. The service sequence is the process that is mainly associated with the delivery of food and drinks to the guests. The customer service is a process of managing the whole customer’s experience starting with the moment when a guest has booked a table or entered the restaurant to the moment when the area was cleared, and he left the restaurant (Cousins, Foskett, and Pennington, 2011). As there is a huge variety of different restaurant concepts and approaches to service, there are different criteria and customer’s expectations and requirements to service. However, if the customer decides to come back to a given restaurant because he is satisfied with the overall experience, it is a very good indicator. Based on the results of empirical research carried out by Namkung and Jang (2007), there were identified many different attributes of customer satisfaction: taste and presentation of food, fascinating interior design, spatial seating arrangement, and pleasing background music. However, in addition to these attributes, competent employees, responsive and reliable service were another three important attributes (Namkung and Jang, 2007). If customers are satisfied with everything except service, they will more likely seek for another place. Thus, a high quality guest service in restaurants is a keystone to success, while poor service can play a fatal role to the overall business (Heum and Lam, 2003). The outcomes of a service experience could be value, judgements, emotions, and/or intentions, including the intention to come again to a given restaurant. Therefore, the best measurement of customer service is considered to be customer’s satisfaction and loyalty. While everybody has individual perception of poor service, there are some generally accepted indicators, which demonstrate that something is going in the wrong way, and there is increased risk of customer relations problems. These indicators are: increasing number of complaints generally or specifically about staff; increasing number of accidents; increases in breakages; regular mistakes by staff in orders, shortages of equipment, poor morale of staff, arguments/conflicts between staff, high turnover, and others (Cousins, Foskett, and Pennington, 2011). All these aspects may result or contribute to customer’s dissatisfaction (Heung and Lam, 2003). People, who are dissatisfied with their dining experience in a particular restaurant, will hardly come back, unless there is some constrained meeting or event. Poor service results in increased complaints, which negatively influence repeat business, as customers are not willing to come back. Repeat business in this case means returning customers. Nowadays, when the competition is especially fierce in the restaurant industry, repeat customers are strategic competitive advantage of any organisation. Moreover, unhappy customers may spread information on their negative experience in a given restaurant in order to “warn their families and friends” or even “divert to mass media” (Heung and Lam, 2003). According to Mack et al (2000) businesses lose approximately 50 per cent of their customers every five years because of customers’ dissatisfaction, which transforms in extensive negative word of mouth. A more recent study, published by Mintel (2015), also illustrates similar tendency whereas approximately 40% of people recommend their friends and family to choose one restaurant over another when choosing a venue to eat out of home. This behavior might have a devastating effect on the business, resulting in reduced potential in terms of both retaining existing clients and attracting new clients to the restaurant. Therefore, the restaurants should be keen on improving their service level as it will “generate customer loyalty and increase the probability of repeat business” (Deszca and Ament, 1992, 4). Conclusion Restaurant business is a service sector, whereas people come not only in order to feed their hunger, but also to communicate, to socialise, and to enjoy themselves from being served. There are many different formats and concepts of restaurants and, therefore, the expectations and requirement to quality of service vary significantly. Of course, the more upscale the restaurant is, the higher are expectations of service quality. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the importance of service skills in restaurants is higher in upscale full-time restaurants. However, it is also worth to note that there exist some basic standards to service quality. In order to stay competitive many restaurants recognise the importance of service skills and strive to improve these skills in order to retain existing and attract new customers. As it has been found, many guests who are dissatisfied with poor service tend to choose other places to eat out. Moreover, the risk of negative word of mouth also increases significantly. Therefore, the restaurants should set the priority of high quality service that increases customers’ loyalty and positively impacts on repeat business. References: Cousins, J., Foskett, D., & Pennington, A. (2011). Food and beverage management. Woodeaton, Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers. Deszca, G. and Ament, L. (1992), “Service challenge of the 1990s: Part I. Managing service: the style and skills for quality”, Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 24. Iss 7, pp. 3-5. Heung, V. and Lam, T. (2003), “Customer complaint behavior towards hotel restaurant services”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 15, iss. 5, pp.283-289. Pun, K. and Ho, K. (2001), “Identification of service quality attributes for restaurant operations: a Hong Kong case”, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, vol 11, iss. 4, pp. 233-240. Mack, R., Mueller, R., Crotts J, and Broderick, A. (2000), “Perceptions, corrections and defections: implications for service recovery in the restaurant industry”, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, vol 10, iss. 6, pp. 339-346. Mintel, (2015), Eating Out: The digital consumer – UK., Retrieved 04 July, 2015 from http://academic.mintel.com/display/736319/?highlight#hit1 Namkung, Y., and Jang, S. (2007), “Are highly satisfied restaurant customers really different? A quality perception perspective”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 20, iss 2, pp. 142-155. Pratten, J. (2003), “The importance of waiting staff in restaurant service”, British Food Journal, vol 105, iss 11, pp. 826-834. Walker, J. (2008). The restaurant. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley. Walter, U., Edvardsson, B., and Ostrom, A. (2010), “Drivers of customers’ service experiences: a study in the restaurant industry”, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, vol. 20, iss. 3, pp. 236-258. Read More