I had the opportunity in 2002 to go through hospitality and customer service training similar to what the Ritz Carlton organization uses. This program was implemented at one of the premier shopping malls in the country, The Grove in Los Angeles. I was a Concierge Services Manager at the mall. Our concierge team was so good that we won the 2002 Wall Street Journal Battle of the Concierges. We beat the W Hotel in San Francisco and the Ritz in NYC.
The training program was simple and straight forward:
- Intense customer service training before new employees interact with guests.
- Wallet card with customer service guidelines on it.
- Memorization of customer service guidelines.
- Customer service test, must pass before assuming position.
- Daily Pre-shift Meeting for all employees including managers.
I want to focus on the pre-shift meeting aspect of the system because it was key to the overall implementation of the program and what maintained our customer service standards after the initial training.
Over my years of managing restaurants I have built upon that foundation and created the OpsAnalitica Pre-shift Methodology that I would like to share with you today.
Your Pre-shift is broken into the following sections:
- Customer Service Tenant
- This is one of 10 to 15 customer service tenants that you train and hold your team responsible for implementing.
- Quick explanation of the service tenant as a story.
- Make the story relatable and short.
- Team member Experience
- A team member shares a real life experience where they discuss a time when they gave or received service highlighted in the service tenant.
- How did that make them or the guest feel?
- Important shift Information
- 86’d items
- Specials
- Quote or Joke of the day
- Share a quote or joke of the day.
- Make sure joke is appropriate for your audience.
- Shift contest
- Every shift you should run a contest to motivate the team and you reward the winners with a meal, or credit, or post shift drink, etc.
- You can run longer contests, like bottles of wine in a month but you really have to work to keep the team motivated and the prize has to be a lot bigger. Sometimes distributors will provide the prize.
- Serving guests can become monotonous, use contest to motivate your team and to focus them on high contribution margin or items that are nearing expiration. By using contests to move these types of products you can lower waste and increase profits.
- When I worked at Changs over a decade ago the food cost on Chicken Lettuce Wraps was $.39 an order and they sold for $6.95. Chicken Lettuce Wraps had a 6% food cost. Don’t you want to be incenting your servers to sell items that have high contribution margins?
- Make sure you announce the winner of last shift’s contest at the next Pre-shift meeting.
- Examples of server games:
- Server Bingo
- Ticket times contests
- Food or drink Item contest
- Compliment contests
- Comment card contests
- Every shift you should run a contest to motivate the team and you reward the winners with a meal, or credit, or post shift drink, etc.
I’ve seen first hand at a Changs the power of pre-shifts. Taking that couple of minutes before every shift to focus your team on service, give them a goal, and communicate vital information works wonders. I was a part of a management team that increased weekly sales by 50k a week from 125 to over 170k a a week in an 8 month period and pre-shifts were a major part of the strategy.
