12 Effective Ways to Improve Customer Service

by Jim Sullivan

Better service makes for happier customers: happier customers buy more.  And while your food and beverage quality is paramount, the fact remains that good service can save a bad meal, but a good meal cannot save bad service. So since you’re busy with a million other things, here’s a bullet point list of 33 best practices and creative ways to sharpen the service saw. Read ‘em and reap:

1. Make a list of your top 5 customer complaints. Eliminate them.
2. Make a list of your top 5 customer expectations. Exceed them.
3. Determine who you think consistently delivers the best service in our industry. Study how they do it. Do it better. Size doesn’t matter.
4. Presence is key in service-giving. Be here now for every customer.
5. Re: customers or team: don’t make promises you can’t keep and keep the promises you do make.
6. Do an LSE (little something extra) for every customer.
7. Only hire customer-facing team members with an affinity for friendliness and service.
8. Hire nice people. Training people to be nice is a major pain in the butt.
9. Serve your internal customers first. The way you treat your team members determines how they’ll treat your guests.
10. Keep it Clean: the cleaner the operation, the more you sell.  Counters, tabletops, parking lots, entrance ways, doors and drive-through window areas should be sparkling. Really.
11. Teach employees what they get paid for. And that is repeat business.
12. DIRFT: Do it Right the First Time. Anticipate and solve problems before the customer complains. If a customer notices the problem first, it’s too late.