Good customer service goes along way and often ranks above food as a reason to choose a venue because it’s all about the customer experience symbolizing a gatekeeper that leads to a Market Share increase.
It simply cannot be emphasized enough how vital it is to pay attention to detail. Even the tinniest variations within our service performance can lead to considerable impact on our customer’s perception and their decision to pay us a visit.
The Brailsford Principle
Much like the idea championed by Sir Dave Brailsford for Team GB Cyclists, where his notion of Marginal Gains, helped transform an average team to outstanding team achieving groundbreaking success on track. The same principles can apply and help move you towards and beyond the tipping point, the balance between whether customers will choose your business or the others just down the road.
Brailsford joined British Cycling in 1997 on the back of lottery funding and took over as performance director in 2003. He revolutionized the sport with his attention to detail, notably with his focus on the context of ‘marginal gains’, which brought Team GB 30 Olympic medals between 2004 and 2012 and a further 11 in Rio with a continuation of these principles. Brailsford’s philosophy of ‘marginal gains’ came from the idea that if you break down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.
And so, we can apply ‘ The Brailsford Principle’ within the context of Hospitality. For example let’s break down the “Exceptional Customer Experience” ideology; to identify the elements and attempt to improve each and one of them by just a few %.
Exceptional Customer Experience:
- Food Service
- Drink Service
- Customer Service
- Waiting Times
- Feedback Opportunity
- Loyalty Schemes
- Personalised Service
- Social Media Sharing
- Customer Care
- Trust
- Excitement
The elements above only reflect those which can be improved using the getWaiter! app. You will notice that they focus directly on the customer. We are not considering in this example the outer contributing factors such as staff recognition and appreciation; which can of course also have an impact on our customer’s experience.
The getWaiter! service allows you to approach Marginal Gains both reactively and proactively. Quite simply, the system allows you to continuously monitor, control and respond to any variations in performance and the particles that contribute to the overall Customer Experience.
Example of Staying Reactive:
Collect Feedback, as this will help you to understand what your customer’s really think about your food and service. By using the getWaiter! system you can access a live feed of customer feedback. This means that you have the unbeatable opportunity to react to any performance dips that may have taken place. This not only helps to avoid similar occurrences in the future, but also allows you to deal with customer complaints often before they hit the word of mouth phase. Businesses that are customer satisfaction oriented have an easier time in retaining their customers.
Example of Staying Proactive:
Personalise your service, it is extremely pleasant and unique when we can be greeted by our name in a restaurant. By using the getWaiter! system you give your customers the opportunity to enter their name when using the app. This way when your waiting staff sees a queue listing of that customer’s call for attention they will also have their name appearing on the screen. This will allow your stuff to get more personal with that customer and therefore help to build a good customer relationship. The customer will feel valued and is therefore more likely to return.
Marginal Gains focus solely on improving one small thing at a time and realistically can be achieved both proactively and reactively on an almost daily basis under good management. Benchmarking on the other hand, is mostly reactive and as a performance management tool is normally rolled out across entire or specific sections of a restaurant chain.
Benchmarking is yet another fascinating exercise that should be undertaken more frequently by the Hospitality sector due to it’s fast paced environment. Precisely why, we will dig into the topic of it next week.
If you are interested in getting further detail on specific factors that can be a subject to Marginal Gains via getWaiter! please contact us info@getwaiter.com or visit www.getwaiter.com for more information. A small improvement can make a lifetime of a difference.
