You cannot sell what you don't know
Waiters and waitresses, also commonly known as servers, are members of the hospitality service industry who attend to guests by taking orders, serving food and beverages, and processing payments. They clean and prepare (set up) tables before, during, and after service, and perform additional tasks as required by their work establishments. Working as a food server can be fast-paced and demanding and involve a variety of different tasks aimed at providing guests an enjoyable dining experience.
What is surprisingly unknown to many servers and one that hardly very few operators of the food service industry realise is that servers have the easiest ‘sales’ job. For instance, salespersons in most other industries have a lot of convincing to do to persuade customers to buy their product. That step is already done for servers – guests have already stepped into the restaurant or café. They have come in hungry, thirsty and ready to buy. But from that point matters begin to fade.
What happens is that the menu is usually thrust on the table, with the server expecting it to do their job of selling for them. This is because many servers are led to believe that the menu does their product knowledge job for them. What can they possibly say that isn’t already written down in black and white or shown in pictures? A lot more infact!
Today’s dining patron is well-informed and more food aware than ever before. Your restaurant staff should be too, and that all starts with a knowledge of the menu. In any great restaurant, having well-versed front-room staff is as important as having quality ingredients and a skilled chef. Unfortunately, that’s a skill a lot of front-facing people don't have.
Nowadays, seldom do I encounter a server making suggestions on specific menu items or the best items the kitchen is plating, and answer questions that help me enjoy my dining experience. A server knowing the ingredients in each dish is a plus especially if a customer has allergies or dislikes certain foods. It's not something I expect but when they do know… it's great!
The biggest obstacle to sales success in any industry is a lack of product knowledge. It’s simple: you can’t sell what you don’t know. In the restaurant business, when guests are indecisive, they depend on staff to describe certain menu items and knowing at least the basics about your product is critical to selling it effectively. Learning about each and every item on the menu is an enhanced component to service and sales training.
Training In most restaurants focuses on getting the delivery of food and beverage properly done, i.e. the technical aspect of service forgetting that product knowledge, particularly in fine dining, is a heavy-hitting tool in the servers’ toolbox, when they are able to pair items such as beer and appetizers, wine and entrées, or desserts and after-dinner drinks. A server’s level of product knowledge can be the difference between guests enjoying a truly hospitable experience or finding service to be just “okay.”
In his bestselling book, "Setting the Table", Danny Meyer expresses the distinction between service and hospitality in this way: Service is the technical delivery of a product. Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes its recipient feel.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Ex-Hotelier
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