Every Customer In The Restaurant example essay topic

Nicholas Marsh burn Peggy B. Price Honors English 12-3rd period 17 February 2005 Restaurant Management Running a restaurant can be one of the most stressful job as well as the most fun and rewarding job. If the manager is a good leader with excellent leadership skills and has great followers the restaurant will be rewarded. If not the restaurant will plummet in sales and no one will be pleased. While developing a business's taff is important to running a successful restaurant, it is also essential that management focus on its public relations as well as its sales and marketing strategies. Staff developing is vital for restaurants to run smoothly.

A restaurant is composed of two sectors; a Front of House (FOH) and theirs a Back of House (BOH). The front of the house is what is visible to the customers' eye. Customers can not see the back of the house. Back of the house is where cooks prepare the food and where the dishwasher is located. Manager Brian Aycock explained that if a manager develops his staff, it makes the restaurant run smooth. The store will profit, the employees and the guest will be satisfied (Aycock).

If the staff is not getting along, a lot of tension will grow inside the restaurant and co-workers will not work with one another as a team. In return the customers will not be happy and the profit will not be as desirable. When customers are not happy with the visit they had at the restaurant, they will then spread the word to all their friends. Each staff member of the restaurant should have nice and clean hygiene along with good manners. Having good hygiene is very important whether an employee is waiting tables, washing dishes, or cooking. If an employee does not shower friction will start to grow between the staff and no one would like to work or even be around that employee.

Working in the food service industry with overgrown nails or dirty nails is against the health code and could contaminate the food being prepared by the employee. Being around a customer with bad hygiene could possibly hinder the customer from having a memorable time at the restaurant. Having good manners is also mandatory for every staff member so that no problems can surface between the staff and customers. Steve Marchetti explained that each employee are to meet the minimal standards set forth in the employee handbook and also deliver on the company's commitment to their customers (Marchetti). A restaurants commitment to its customers is to provide a friendly, safe environment along with awesome food and service. The employee handbook includes information that each employee should abide by.

This includes the rules and regulations, benefits as well as an introduction to the company. Rules in the handbook are actions that no employee should act out and the regulations explain the consequences if a rule were to be broken. Benefits are only available to staff members; usually they consists of discount prices on meals and insurance. The Hiring process of restaurants usually consists of filling out an application with a minimum of two interviews and one test (Marchetti). When the restaurant tests future employees, they usually give a brain test testing the mathematical skills in case the computers are down.

A test on how to deal with customer problems and issues that may occur. After each employee is hired they must go through an orientation introducing and welcoming them to their restaurants's taff. Following the orientation the new employee will go through a training phase. Pending on the position the person was hired for; they will be trained by a peer in the same field that they desired to work in. The training process usually takes five days for the employee to be fully trained. Local restaurant owner of Bonefish Grill, Brian Aycock explained that each new employee has to go under a five day training period (Aycock).

The first day of training is normally when the new employee shadows an employee that has a great deal of knowledge about that field. Usually the first day is when the person is being taught how to operate the appliances and meet fellow co-workers. Second day of training is when the new employee will be shadowed by an veteran employee and will be helped only when needed. Third day through the fifth day of training is when the trainee is typically by themselves and if in a bind, they have to try to work themselves out of it themselves. After the fifth day of training, the employee will be given a test testing them on how to work the appliances, dishes on the menu and how they will or can be prepared and a test on the restaurants' rules and regulations located in the handbook. Mostly all restaurants serve alcoholic beverages, so each employee is required to monitor how many drinks the customer has had and how intoxicated they are.

It is also the responsibility of the restaurant to make sure an intoxicated customer does not drive a motor vehicle and to make sure it leaves the restaurants' premises without being harmed. Each employee is to check the identification of a customer who asks for an alcoholic beverage and to make sure that no under aged customer be slipped an alcoholic beverage. If an incident like this should happen, a manager should be notified and further action will be applied if needed. Brian Aycock declared that if an unruly customer came his restaurant they would be asked to leave (Aycock). If an unruly customer comes in and creates commotion while disturbing guest, the unruly guest will be given a warning. The first warning usually will come from a restaurant employee asking the customer to calm down and if there is anything they can do.

After giving the customer their first warning, a manager should be informed of the problem. If the problem should consists the manager should come and issue another verbal warning to guests asking them what the dilemma is and state to the if the problem should occur they will be asked to leave. If for some reason a customer is unhappy, an employee should do everything in their power to make the customer satisfied. Mr. Aycock explained, "Let the customer know the problem is being corrected" (Aycock).

It is very important to let the customer know that the problem is being resolved so the customer will not feel they are going unnoticed. An employee should never argue with a customer; even if the customer is wrong. Arguing with a customer does nothing but make the customer feel disgruntled and irritable because in the customers mind; something was not done the way it should have been. A customer should feel wanted and appreciated soon as they walk thru they enter the restaurant. Inside and outside the restaurant should be setup were customers with physical limitations can easily move around the restaurant (Wasserman 1). This includes handicap parking spaces, wheel chair ramps and handicap bathroom stalls.

A handicapped customer is equal to a regular customer in a restaurant's eyes. Handicap customer usually brings at least one or more people with them which means more money for the company. An employee should always look at the restaurant as if they were the customer (Wasserman 1). Employees should always pay attention to the floors to keep trash off them and pick up trash when they walk by. Checking all the lights to make sure they are all light and also look presentable when talking to guest. The restaurant business today is one of the fastest growing industries.

In an article named The Restaurant Business Plan, at least six-hundred new restaurants open each month. This brings in more than twenty-thousand jobs a month and gives the community more of a variety of restaurants to choose from. Mostly two hundred or more restaurants are not able to keep up with the growing competition and are eventually forced to shut down according to The Restaurant Business Plan. The economy is steadily growing stronger everyday and while the economy keeps rising, the demand increases. Written by The Restaurant Business Plan, the average citizen spends at least fifteen percent of their income on meals away from home and has been steadily rising for the past seven years. This is one main reason why the food service industry is the third largest industry today The four ways to market a restaurant through advertising include print media which shows advertising through billboards, newspapers, magazines and fly ers.

Radio consists of broadcasting audio commercials over the radio. Television advertisements are commercials a viewer sees when watching and web advertisements are usually pop-ups which are ads that just randomly appear when surfing the web. These are the four major elements in advertising. Print media can compose of posting ads in newspapers as well as on billboards. Magazines are the best option of print media advertising. Magazines do not often get thrown away; instead people tend to pass them down to one another.

The Quality of an ad in a magazine are always better than ones shown in newspapers and are always in color where as it is mostly black and white in a newspaper. Radio advertisement is the most unreliable when attracting listeners. Most viewers tend to switch to different stations that are not launching commercials. Most vehicles are equipped with compact disc players where there are no commercials. Television commercials usually tend to make the average viewer turn the channel. Television ads usually are most effective when the commercial has a sense of drama or humor to attract the viewers.

When ask, how to you market a restaurant, Steve Marchetti answered, "By radio, television and word of mouth. When Marchetti was asked to tell about his target market, the Wilmington restaurant owner replied, "Women ranging from the age of twenty-four through fifty-four" (Marchetti). He also went into further detail about the target market explaining that women in that age range usually have a boyfriend, husband, or will bring in a flock of their friends to have dinner. "A good sales and marketing strategy and marketing strategy for a restaurant is to talk to every customer in the restaurant, have one-hundred percent execution and become a well-known community figure by donating time as well as food to charity causes", Marchetti stated. When a customer has a great time at a restaurant and the food was magnificent, they will tell people how they had such a fantastic time. After those people hear how great the service and food was, then they will come searching for that great time as well.

Most prices in restaurants are determined by the company's main office. As stated in an article named The Marketing Mix, in order for a restaurant to decide on its prices it must consider the profit margins and how much a competitor will sale that same item for. A restaurant process is also dependent on the restaurants image (Marketing Strategy). For a restaurant to stay in business, it must have its own special abilities according to author Bob Stone in "Successful Direct Marketing Methods".

A restaurants own special abilities could be the style (American, Asian, Chinese, German and Japanese) of food. The rating of a restaurant ranging from one star to five stars and its customers. Most restaurants located in Wilmington are three star restaurants which appeal to families. Prices in three star restaurants are usually affordable to people with middle to upper income level customers.

The type of food that is being served and the service being given to the customers. When questioned, How to increase sales, Steve Marchetti responded by saying, "Through impeccable execution, making sure every customer has a fantastic experience, and talking to every guest" (Marchetti). This method makes the customer feel more wanted and appreciated and the customer will probably come back again. Making sure the guest has a wonderful time can be shown through exemplary service and having the customers cuisine up in a timely manner and cooked to their desire. By filling up the customers drink periodically makes them feel more appreciated and unforgotten. Adding new items to the menu that customers have not heard or seen before will make sales increase.

Public relations are a key element in making a restaurant run properly. Media is a key component when dealing with public relations. The media is not known for giving excellent publicity to restaurants. Publicity is a form of advertisement that is not paid for. Restaurants are often portrayed as nasty kitchens by the media when they do specials on restaurants sanitation grades.

A restaurant with a high score on the health inspectition will only receive three seconds of fame; as for the restaurants with a low scoring sanitation grade will be giving five minutes of shame. The media does not recognize the charity work that restaurants do for the community. Most publicity is bad publicity because good publicity does not sale. Restaurant managers depend on public relation, for if in the event one restaurant runs out of a necessity, one manager can call another restaurant and ask for the necessity that is needed. Stated by Brian Aycock, "With the limited view customers have of Bonefish grill, the only way they can market to big competition in their small space is through exuberant service that they give to their customers" (Aycock). By giving the great service to the people, the advertisement form "word of mouth" starts to come in to place.

For every good complement a customer gives out, its most likely to only reach out to three people. When a customer has a bad experience, that customer will tell at least ten people (Aycock). Namely the reason why when people are having a horrible visit at a restaurant they do everything they possibly canto improve the situation before that customer leaves their property. They rather have that customer tell their friends how they had a problem and how the restaurant did every thing in their power to fix the problem as soon as possible rather than telling how they had a problem and it never got solved to ten different people. Normally bad public relations come from bad publicity caused by the media.

The media can blow everything out of proportion. If an incident like this should happen Mike Aycock gave three steps on how to solve bad public relations. Step one was to take responsibility for the problem if correct and try to fix it. Step two is to assure the public that the problem will not happen again. Step three is to let the public know that the problem is being solved and that the restaurant cares. Step one can be executed by just easily stating that a mistake was made and showing ones remorse to the public.

Step two can be worked out by running the restaurant like normal and apologize to every customer and step three will be done when the customer returns to the restaurant. Charity work is done by restaurants to create good publicity by doing fund-raisers for charitable causes. Steve Marchetti of Carrabba's Italian Grill have given out free appetizer cards to a local high school for their prom. "We donate time and food to charitable causes that I and the marketing department feel who will hit our target market" (Marchetti). Donating appetizer cards to a high school prom will have teenagers and their parents visit their restaurant. That means more profit for the restaurant.

When having a fund raiser for a company, the restaurant manager should make it a point to create a team of influential workers with the idea to make eye to eye contact with the large company (Stone 140). The only thing a restaurant can gain from an fund-raiser good public relations. In return good public relations create greater business. In a restaurant that has strong staff that was trained exceptionally well the company will profit.

Staff that can work together as a team with no problems will be greatly rewarded once they see that the sales will be increasing and tips will be larger. Good staff will increase good public relations which will result in better business. Marketing a restaurant is the most important part in running a restaurant. If a restaurant is not marketed, no one will know about the restaurant causing it to lose money to operate forcing it to close down.

Prices on the menu should always be appealing to the restaurant target market and set towards the products on the menu. It is essential that a restaurant develops its staff to the fullest, for a strong staff creates better sales and the public is pleased.

Bibliography

Aycock, Brian. Restaurant Management. Wilmington, NC. 10 February 2005.
Marchetti, Steve. Restaurant Management. Wilmington, NC. 9 February 2005.
Marketing Strategy. Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, INC. 24 January 2005, .
Stone, Bob. Successful Direct Marketing Methods. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Business Books, 1989.
The Sample Business Plan. Kun do Inc. 27 January 2005.
Wasserman, Michael. 15 Techniques When Dealing With Customers. My Success Company. 25 January 2005.