5 star restaurants offer great service. They have an ideal ratio of employees to customers. They get to have great employees because they pay well. And they can pay well because they charge a lot, so they can source the best ingredients. And so on. So it’s a win-win all around, if you can afford it.
But most other restaurants don’t enjoy this for a variety of reasons. Most restaurant owners don’t get into the profession because they are savvy business people, as evidenced by the popularity of Food Network shows such as “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Restaurant Impossible”)
Your business may not be 5-star, whether you are an owner or an employee of one. You may not feel like you have the room or opportunity to provide that level of service. Reasons include a lack of support resources, shortage of staff, insufficient time at or with your customer, an overcommitted schedule, slow or unreliable tools.
These are REAL reasons. But you still can strive to create your own “5-star” experience inside of each interaction. Here’s how:
– do less
– do it better
– make it memorable
– communicate more than you feel may be necessary.
Hear that voice in your head? The one that’s saying any of these responses?But I’ll get in trouble if I spend all my time helping just one person!I have a list of 12 tickets to close, I can’t just do 5 of them, I will have 7 really upset people.I only have an hour, and to do this perfectly will take at least 90 minutes.I can’t make this process go any faster. It just takes a really long time to complete!There are numerous reasons to justify not being able to do 5-star work. But if you stop and think about what you “need” in order to do 5-star work, you may find your boss, and even your client will be amenable to it.
“There isn’t enough time to complete all of these items today. I’d like to schedule more time with you now, and whatever we don’t complete now we’ll get to on the next appointment.” – it might be better to refuse to do sloppy work than to do it and get complaints later. The 5-star restaurants upset thousands of people because they have so few tables. Does that seem to affect their reservations?
Your ratio of time to work may not be as good as the 5-star restaurant. Shorten the list. That may upset your customer, but if the ratio of “time to work” improves, the work quality will improve. And if they love your work, they’ll either give you more time, or fire you and find a cheaper solution provider. And them firing your company isn’t so terrible. Because you get to go home knowing you did 5-star work. What if your boss insists on you cramming in as much work as possible even if it means cutting corners? That’s easy, just head on over to our careers page :)
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