Introduction to Front-of-House Hospitality

1.1 Your Introduction to Front-of-House Hospitality.

When it comes to front-of-house hospitality, we are talking about any individual that is working in a restaurant or bar and interacts with the customers. This may be as either a manager, working behind the bar serving drinks, or waiting staff, as the key is that they must be talking with customers and dealing with their requests and complaints. This means that any member of staff that is involved in this kind of role is, therefore, representing the restaurant brand whenever they are at work. This means that it is important that each individual is aware of how to act, as well as how to correctly deal with customers to make sure that they have the best experience possible when visiting the establishment. It is the job of any individual that is working in a public area to interact with the customers from the

moment that they first make contact with the restaurant until they leave. A failure to do so to an adequate level will result in the customer having a negative experience which can then develop into a reduction in the number of people that will become repeat customers.

How you interact with the customers will vary depending on your precise role within the establishment, but we will look at each role independently further on in the course. However, there are also a number of areas that remain constant no matter your front-of-house position and we will begin by looking at the importance of each of those areas individually.

1.2 The Basics of This Form of Hospitality

Prior to going into the ins and outs of you the individual and the role that you can play with your own personality and how customers experience the restaurant, we need to quickly run over the basics of this form of hospitality in a bit more detail.

It covers many facets and while individual jobs may focus primarily on only certain areas, a restaurant manager has to have a good grip of the entire inner workings of the restaurant from every conceivable angle. For a manager, it is all about making sure that each individual member of staff is doing their appropriate roles to the best of their ability and providing the level of service that is to be expected from them.

A manager needs to be sure that bar staff members are serving people within a certain length of time and are aware of individual requests to make sure that people are getting what they want. Staff that are designated as meeting and greeting customers must be dressed appropriately and are being polite and welcoming in accordance with the training that they have received. Wait staff must be aware of the specials of the day, know every aspect of the menu and whether or not anything is not available as well as the ability to deal with dietary requirements, which is undoubtedly becoming more important in the world today. A restaurant manager must also make sure that everything flows smoothly with tables being cleared and prepared for the next customer like a well-oiled machine.

However, most importantly, a restaurant manager must be able to deal with any issues or queries in a professional manner should a member of staff be unable to resolve them. A good restaurant manager must be capable of dealing with people even when they are irate and unhappy with their experience at the restaurant. They must be able to get to the absolute root of the problem, come up with an appropriate solution, and make sure that the customer that may not have been too happy goes away with a different outlook. In other words, when it comes to front-of-house hospitality, it is all to do with portraying the restaurant as a professional outfit that treats its customers with care and respect at all times and values every single individual that comes through its doors. The key to it all is in its name, hospitality. You must be hospitable and treat each customer as if they mean the absolute world to the business because, after all, that is what it should be like. For some, this sounds rather easy, but in actual fact, there are a number of important points that must be addressed to give a potential restaurant manager a good grounding in the art of customer service and running this kind of establishment on a day to day basis. What will follow throughout this course are a series of modules that will look at various key aspects that, when all brought together, will provide you with a complete understanding of what is required on your part to be effective in this role.

Throughout these modules, you will learn more about your individual role within the restaurant, more about customer service and how to provide the best service possible. You will learn about body language, how you act, and the various types of dining experiences that you may encounter that will allow you to work in any situation. You will learn more about the importance of understanding food, drinks, how to deal with complaints, various laws, how to build a successful team that can all work together, and the importance of checklists that will be designed to keep the restaurant running as smoothly as possible.

In other words, you will learn the basics of absolutely everything to do with this kind of business and in the process it will allow you to become the best restaurant manager that you can possibly be.

1.3 Providing Good Service and its Benefits

To begin with, we should look at the one thing that every customer is seeking whenever they arrive at a restaurant, good service. Without this, there will virtually be no restaurant to speak of such is its importance. Generally speaking, good service includes the following attributes: Staff members are welcoming as soon as customers enter the establishment. Staff members are polite at all times. Staff members look respectable and act accordingly at all times.

Staff members are attentive to the needs of the customer. Staff members are able to deal with any issues quickly and efficiently. Staff members makes the customer feel that they are valued.

A customer never wants to feel that they are being ignored, nor do they want to feel that their needs are not being met or that staff members simply do not care. As you can imagine, a failure to provide this level of service would not only reflect badly on the individual member of staff but, by proxy, it then reflects badly on the restaurant. It is known that a restaurant that has a reputation for poor customer service will find its profits dropping with not even the food able to rescue it. Good service begins from the very moment that a customer either calls to make a booking or walks

through that door. The key is to address them correctly, deal with their booking or their walk-in request for a table, and to be professional at all times. You want to create an impression that absolutely nothing will be a bother to you and that you are more than happy to serve them with whatever they need, at least within certain limitations. You are

the first point of contact between the customer and the restaurant. You are the first way in which the business is able to make a great first impression. It is your chance to make sure that every single customer is both happy and satisfied with their experience with the restaurant. Generally speaking, there are five key areas with any successful customer service approach and being able to implement a workable strategy with each area will inevitably lead to your customers having a better overall experience with the restaurant.

1. Meeting Their Expectations

A diner wants to leave a restaurant feeling that their expectations have indeed been met by the business as a whole. They want to feel that any issues have been handled correctly, and that they have actually had a memorable experience. Failing to meet their expectations, which can also fit in with how the restaurant is perceived due to feedback and marketing, will only lead to a reduction in the number of loyal customers that want to keep coming back for more.

2. Delivering On Any Promises

There is nothing more demoralising for a customer than when they are promised wonderful service or amazing food and this is not delivered to them. If they are promised amazing service, then you should not just be aiming to provide them with amazing service, but to actually go beyond that to impress them even more. If they are promised fine dining and they only receive substandard food, then they have not had that promise met and the chances of them then returning are slim. Delivering on promises will lead to repeat customers, which is what every restaurant is seeking.

3. Only Ever Be Realistic

One thing that a restaurant must avoid doing is making a rod for their own back by making claims that they know they will be unable to meet. For example, a three-star restaurant should never be proclaiming to be five-star or, alternatively, a five star restaurant should never be providing just three-star service.

4. Seeking Feedback

Providing the correct level of customer service means that you will be more likely to receive feedback that can either be positive or negative. In actual fact, negative feedback can have a better impact for a business as long as it is constructive since it then allows you to understand the areas that need to be worked on and improved. From a customer relations perspective, it is better to get feedback from a customer at the time, even if they may be angry or disappointed, as there is a theory that it allows them to get what they have to say off their chest and it provides you with an opportunity to appease them in a positive manner. By doing this, it has been shown to reduce the chances that they will then go on to inform countless people about their negative experience and instead they are more likely to mention how they had an issue, but it was dealt with accordingly with this then turning a negative into a positive.

5. Customer Service Increases Loyalty

The fifth and final key point that you should be aware of is the link between good customer service and the impact it has on customer loyalty. By working hard to impress each customer, it means that they are more likely to be happy with their experience and a happy customer will then become a loyal customer. Make sure that you always focus on them and their needs because without them you would not have a job.

1.4 The Benefits of Good Customer Service

It is clear that there are going to be a number of benefits of good customer service and in this introduction we need to just quickly run over them as a form of preparation for the later module that is dedicated to this very topic. We need to stress that good customer service is right up there alongside the quality of the food when it comes to what is important with a restaurant. If one lets you down, then the results can be extremely detrimental to the restaurant and business as a whole. To make our point about customer service, you need to consider the following benefits.

1. Good Customer Service Means They Will Come Back

By doing everything in your power to increase the chances of customers coming back repeatedly, it means that there is less reliance on marketing to constantly pull in new customers. If you are able to create a sense of loyalty, then a restaurant can at least bank on a certain percentage of recurring income due to developing a loyal customer base. This, in turn, puts less pressure on other aspects of the business as you are not starting from scratch every week. By providing good customer service you can ultimately help to secure your job.

2. It Helps The Finances

This second point kind of rolls on from the first point in that returning customers, and giving the sense of a type of recurring income, will mean that the finances of the restaurant will not be as stretched. It is also true that good customer service will lead to customers being more content within the restaurant and they are also then more likely to spend some more money as a result. More money, means more turnover and more profit.

3. Happy Customers Become Your Marketing Machine

As a restaurant, you are dealing with a lot of competition for the same market, so clearly you need to get word out there that you are the best at what you do in order to draw people into the business. However, by providing first class customer service you will discover that those very same customers will, in effect, become part of your marketing machine.

It is accepted within the industry that a happy customer is more likely to refer you to others or even post positive reviews online and people have a tendency to accept these reviews when they come from normal people rather than the marketing from the actual business.

Think of providing good customer service as being your opportunity to turn these individuals intouseful tools for the business. They can bring so much positivity to a restaurant when the customer service is seen as being of a good level, but at the same time they can also destroy a restaurant when things are not handled correctly.

Good customer service is, in its own way, the glue that can hold the restaurant business together. It is one of two things that people will discuss with others, with the other thing being food, and the last thing you want is to mess up an opportunity to impress the customers. Being friendly, polite, and attentive costs you nothing yet the benefits for the restaurant can then be measured in monetary terms and that is the key point to keep in mind at all times. However, understanding the basics of good customer service and the impact it can have on the business is one thing, but you also need to understand that it is yourself that plays a key role and we mean with everything that you do.

FACT

The UK restaurant industry is worth over £40bn

Source: finance.yahoo.com

1.5 The Importance of You

Next, we need to turn to something that is perhaps even more important for some people than customer service: you.

Everything you do, everything you say, and even the way that you look is going to play an integral role in how you are perceived and, as a result, it will influence what a customer thinks of not only you but the restaurant in general. Now, do not think that just because this focuses on restaurant management that there is anything different from how normal members of staff should portray themselves and act as that is certainly not the case. When we are talking about you, we mean the way you dress, the way you speak, your body language at all times, and how you interact with the customers. We should quickly look at each one individually to give you a better grasp of the role that it all plays.

1.6 The Way You Dress

If we begin with the way you dress, then it has to fit in with what the restaurant is trying to achieve. There are some restaurants that go for a more relaxed atmosphere and there will be a staff uniform, so you must make sure that you always fit in with what is expected of you by the owners. However, you need to still be presentable to the customers. You must still be neat and tidy, so if you are dressing more formally, then things such as clean shoes, pressed shirt, even your hair being tidy all plays a part in the experience that the customer has in the establishment. You must remember that you are part of the overall brand of the restaurant. If you look scruffy and unkempt, then this reflects badly on the business as a whole as people always associate the staff with the restaurant. If they perceive you as being untidy in your appearance, then they will start to

see the entire restaurant as being untidy and as soon as a negative experience comes into their mind it is easy for it to then develop into something far greater and there is no doubt that it can all spring from just the way you dress. So, with the way you dress we recommend keeping these key points in mind at all times: Dress according to the uniform and vibe of the restaurant.

Be smart and presentable at all times. Remember that you are representing the restaurant by the way you dress. Untidy and unkempt staff reflects badly on the restaurant. As a manager, keep on top of how staff dress and reprimand when required.

You would not expect to go to a restaurant and see staff being dressed as if they had just come off the street, so do not apply that to your own situation, as that is not the way forward. Dress appropriately and it will add to the positive feelings that customers will have about the restaurant.

1.7 Your Body Language

Even though you may not be aware of it, your body language is something that we are all better at reading than you perhaps thought. What you are aiming for during your work is to put across the feeling that you enjoy your work, that

you are friendly and open, and also that you are relaxed and this all comes across in the actions of your body. Try to think of it in this way: You will have had direct experience of knowing, and feeling, that someone is unhappy just because of the way they are sitting or standing. They are hunched over, they seem tense, or they shoulders are drooping and they give off a vibe that they have given up. Now, take those ideas, which are all negative, and put them into a restaurant situation and see how this could have an impact on the experience that a customer has in the restaurant.

Would you personally want to ask a member of staff to help you if their body language is telling you that they are unhappy or annoyed? Of course not, and then the mind will begin to create ideas or reasons as to why this is the case. However, it will ultimately mean that the customer will begin to form the idea that staff members in the restaurant are unapproachable and unfriendly; this will not exactly tempt them into coming back. Indeed, they are then more likely to inform others about their experience, so body language can have a knock on effect that goes beyond the experience had by just one individual.

View body language like this:

If your body language is open and friendly, customers will be drawn to it.

If it is closed and negative, customers will apply that to the restaurant.

Confident movements will have a positive impact.

Tension in the shoulders will reflect badly.

Now, think about how you feel when you encounter people that are displaying a certain body language. How do you react to them? Does it make you feel more guarded if they are giving off an unfriendly vibe through their body? Of course it will and that is something that will not come across well within this particular setting. If you turn things on their head and think about when you see a member of staff that is giving off a warm and friendly vibe, then you can imagine how your actual experience of that business is going to be greatly improved. You are more likely to approach them if you have an issue. You are more likely to interact with them as they are coming across as being very friendly. You are also then, as a result, likely to spend more money as you are not going to be left with the feeling of just wanting to get out of the establishment simply because of how the staff are portraying themselves. Body language plays a key role in how a customer experiences a restaurant. As a manager, you must keep an eye on how staff members are standing and acting at all times when they are in view of the customers as they will be having either a positive or negative effect on their experience. Make understanding body language and how to put across the correct emotions a part of any training for staff and then make sure that they do indeed implement any changes as it can take time to alter how we act due to it being ruled by our subconscious.

So, when it comes to body language, remember the following points as you work through the rest of the course:

Actions speak louder than 1,000 words, and this applies to your body language.

A closed body tells people not to interact.

An open body stance is more appealing.

Eye contact and a smile works wonders in telling people they can approach you.

Always keep your head up and appear to be interested.

Always avoid crossing your arms.

There is a reason why body language works, consider studying it independently in a bit more detail to give you a better understanding of how it can influence the way that people act around you.

1.8 How You Speak

Even how you speak can determine how an individual then feels about their experience at a restaurant. A member of staff should always be polite and speak well and by this we do not mean you must speak in a way that you sound posh. Instead, speak clearly and do not use slang terms, unless that is the kind of vibe that the restaurant is trying to give off. However, in most instances it is better for staff to speak in a clear manner and to address customers in the correct way so as to show them respect at all times. Whenever a member of staff is talking to a customer, it is extremely important that they are professional throughout the conversation. If the staff member is dealing with a booking over the telephone, then they must still give a sense of being happy that they called and are friendly over the phone. They must speak clearly and precisely so that there is no misunderstanding as that leads to frustration and frustration can only ever lead to a negative experience. The same can be said with the member of staff that first encounters a customer when they walk through the door. They must be warm and welcoming. They must smile and invite them in. They must be friendly and speak clearly, because this first encounter is really the first attempt that the business has to convince the customer that this is the place that they want to be. At no point should a member of staff use bad language, make jokes, or speak inappropriately in any way. The only time where this may be accepted is when the entire vibe of the restaurant is along those lines, but that happens in an absolute minority of cases.

So, with the way that you speak, do remember the following key points as we work through the modules: Always speak clearly and be polite as anything else will just not do. Never use foul language.

Never use slang unless that is the vibe of the restaurant.

Never be sarcastic or cheeky even as the way of a joke.

Be welcoming and if somebody cannot understand you, then repeat it.

By speaking in the correct way you can come across as being more open to interaction and customers will be more likely to then do so. However, the way you speak can also lead to you being seen as arrogant and rude and that will never reflect well on the restaurant and it must be avoided at all costs. As a restaurant manager, it will also be your job to make sure that the rest of the staff are aware of this and then act accordingly.

1.9 Your Personality

Your overall personality is also important, since that is something that customers will then feed off from you. Perhaps the most important part is that you are friendly towards the customers and make them feel welcome. You do not have to be the life and soul of the party and nor should you be the type of person that is too dominating even when you are merely taking people to their table or asking if you can help them in any way.

However, it is known that a restaurant that has bubbly and attentive staff will always do better than those that are rather more stoic and closed off to other members of the public. It provides a customer with a much better experience when they enter a restaurant and are met by an individual who is warm and is able to come across as being genuinely happy for them to be there. Warning, do not overdo the welcome because this can, in some cases, be seen as being overbearing and it is certainly frowned upon by a number of people.

Think about some of the information that a customer gives to a friend or family member regarding their experience with a particular business. They could easily say that the food in a restaurant was wonderful, but the décor was dated or they felt rushed. Alternatively, they could say that the staff members were just not interested and the waiting staff that were attending to their table had such a bad vibe about them that they could not wait to get out.

Personality can completely change how an individual feels about a restaurant. Someone who is knowledgeable, friendly, who listens, who is not sullen in their facial expressions will all add to the positive feeling of going to that restaurant. If you are the type of person who does not enjoy dealing with people, then this is hardly the industry for you. However, if you have the ability to interact in an appropriate manner with the public and enjoying doing so with this being readily apparent in how you act, then you could be perfect for it. So, when it comes to your personality when working in the hospitality industry in general.

keep these following points in mind:

Keep any personal troubles personal and never bring them to work.

Be the type of person that is warm and welcoming.

As a manager, make sure that the rest of the staff adhere to the same idea.

Appear bubbly but not over the top as this can work against you.

Never come across as being bored or annoyed as this gives off a negative vibe.

This is an industry perfect for people that love people.

You must be the type of person that can handle negativity and complaints well.

Nobody has the perfect personality, but it is an industry where interpersonal skills are an absolute requirement. Being a shy, retiring individual will just not work as there will be times where there is a need to deal with an irate customer and this is no place to be a shrinking violet. At the same time, it is also not the place for those individuals that act irrationally whenever they are confronted with an issue. Instead, to succeed as a restaurant manager you must have patience, the ability to listen, and to come across in a calm and rational manner. By doing so, you may just be able

to turn things around and all through the power of your personality.

A Summary of The Module

This module has had the aim of simply introducing you to the basics of hospitality within a restaurant setting. We have looked at the importance of customer service, how it benefits the restaurant, and the role that you the individual plays in providing the overall experience for those customers.

By providing an excellent experience with the front-of-house you will not only help to improve the standing of the restaurant, but also give customers something positive to say about their overall experience. Doing this job is not as easy as it seems, but the truth of the matter is that the better the understanding that each member of staff has regarding their role will have an impact on the turnover of the restaurant. The other modules will explore that idea even further.