In the hospitality business one simply does not chase out customers
Say you intend visiting Donald, your tailor, to have a new suit sewn for an upcoming important event to be held in a month’s time. Accordingly, the next day, you make an appointment, go to Donald’s tailoring shop on the scheduled day and time, and tell him what you need and when you need it. He informs you that it would take two weeks to complete the new suit. You are then shown a wide range of suiting materials to select from. Once you do that, Donald takes your measurements, recommends a distinct cut and style, tells you how much it all costs, takes an advance payment, and before you leave, wants you to come in for a ‘fit -on’ next week. Everything goes seamlessly.
That’s because Donald always sets the pace and the customer goes with the flow. He knows his tailoring, and he lets his customers know how much he knows. All tailors have opinions and they also recognise when a customer won’t listen to their aesthetic edicts, despite the tailor’s supposedly professional knowledge. In Donald’s case, whenever that occurs, he drives away such customers to the competition. Not very hospitable one might say.
Picture this now; a couple of days after placing your order, you have misgivings about the colour you chose and rush back to the tailor shop to select a different shade. A day or two later, you happen to see a picture of a suit in a magazine that takes your fancy and want Donald to sew the identical style. By this time, your several moments of indecisions and interruptions have pissed off Donald, who in his mind has added you to his ‘let go of this customer in future’ list.
Now imagine the unimaginable – if, all of a sudden, a thirty percent of Donald’s customers behave in the same manner! Would it not drive Donald insane? In all likelihood it certainly would. And if he were to add them all to his ‘let go’ list...it would drive his business downhill too.
Surprisingly, in the world of hospitality, the unimaginable that would otherwise drive Donald crazy...is exactly what routinely happens in restaurants. The industry is a dynamic one in which the guest (diner) dictates the pace and type of service. This leads to challenges that restaurant operators must frequently face, where the preferences of certain diners can cause ‘production disruptions – leading to near heart break.
People are different in all sorts of ways and have varying capabilities, and they can be found within a group or family, all seated at the same table. Some diners need more hand-holding than others, which means the cost and time of serving different customers can be quite different. This variability can take contrasting forms including specific requests and preferences - such as two people ordering grilled chicken on the menu – but each wanting it done / served differently.
Imagine the pressure that service staff has to handle, when, in a restaurant which seats 100 people and is full, an average 1-in 5, of the diners keep asking for changes to their orders. Unlike Donald, not only must those who operate the restaurant cope with it well – but do it gracefully. Being in the hospitality business one simply does not chase out customers – not intentionally.
And that’s a hard act for other businesses to follow.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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