Hospitality service is centered around making guests feel welcome, understood, comfortable, and important. Creating a solid service culture involves satisfying these emotions at every point of service. When this is achieved through personalized and genuine service, the establishment fosters a service culture befitting a private club or community.
In such environments, the challenge is to ensure guests feel this way during every 'moment of truth,' when a guest interacts with an employee or assesses the venue's appearance. These moments can be positive, negative, or neutral. Every employee must strive for positive or neutral moments, as these venues serve a captive audience.
Outstanding service requires commitment at all levels and systems and procedures that support each other. These systems must be followed consistently, whether the venue is slow or experiencing peak business levels, to maintain the service culture. Every employee must be taught, and every manager must model, cultural behavior to ensure consistent service. Consistency and familiarity are primary tenets for private clubs and communities, as is personalized service.
Inconsistency sends a poor message to the audience and negatively impacts the venue's financials through lost covers and revenues. In food and beverage, inconsistency typically appears in food or beverage quality, portion sizes, plate presentation, and service details.
Guests decide to revisit the venue's restaurants based on positive experiences or the venue's ability to create a new reason to return. A particularly delicious dish, a great cocktail, or notably gracious service can influence this decision. However, if consistency is lacking on subsequent visits, it can deter guests from returning and bringing others. Inconsistencies, such as a signature soup tasting different, long waits at the door, or a lack of healthy menu options, can erode trust with guests.
In such settings, inconsistencies not only affect usage but also damage the reputation of the food and beverage program. Trust is built when guests' expectations are met or exceeded. With a captive audience, every opportunity to provide a positive dining experience reinforces this trust. For venues with food and beverage minimums, a lack of trust leads to usage decline and potential revenue loss, as guests may avoid dining at their club or community, preferring to pay the minimum fee to avoid negative or embarrassing experiences.
Laws of Service
1). First Impressions – Details matter (uniforms, grooming, body language); first impressions are made within 7 seconds.
2). Name Recognition – Make guests feel special; get and keep their attention by recognizing their names.
3). Expectations – Ensure smooth transitions and ease of use throughout the service experience.
4). Effort – Effort must come from the service provider, not the customer.
5). Ease of Use – Make it easy for guests to buy or decide.
6). Perception is Reality – Understand that customers see things differently than service providers. The customer perception is our reality.
7). Time Lapse – Perception of time for customers is four times longer than the actual time.
8). Motivation – People are motivated to recreate good experiences, fostering loyalty.
9). Memory – Bad experiences are remembered longer than good ones.
By integrating these laws of service into every interaction, clubs and community establishments can enhance the consistency and quality of their service, ensuring a positive and memorable experience for all guests.
About the Author:
Whitney Reid Pennell, president of RCS Hospitality Group, is a celebrated management consultant, educator, and speaker. RCS specializes in strategic planning, operations consulting, food and beverage management, executive recruitment, and training programs. RCS has been recognized fourteen times with BoardRoom Magazine’s Excellence in Achievement Awards, including staff training seven times. RCS continues to offer innovative solutions through RCSUniversity.com, an online virtual training portal for employees and managers.