Best Practices
The Power of Restaurant Hospitality
"Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel."
So, what do feelings and emotions have to do with operating a restaurant? According to the above quote by restaurant legend Danny Meyer, “everything.”
Consider another quote, “People are not rational beings with occasional emotion, they are emotional beings with occasional rational thought.” While you may consider yourself to be a very logical person, consider the last few big decisions you made, like the last car or house you purchased or the person you married. Were those decisions based more on logic or emotion? I rest my case.
The fact is, human beings are emotional creatures. We are attracted to products, places, people and businesses that make us feel good, which makes providing exceptional restaurant hospitality crucial.
So, what produces good feelings in a restaurant? Obviously, a lot of things. The food, service, atmosphere, consistency, cleanliness, and more affect the mood and feelings of our guests. However, we believe it’s the level of hospitality, the quality of the personal interactions with your guests, that drive your guests’ emotional responses and feelings more than anything else.
People will forget what you’ve said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
– Maya Angelou
Think about having a fabulous meal. The timing, food quality, atmosphere are close to perfect. But the hostess who seated you wasn’t very friendly, and the server was distant and even seemed to be a little aloof. Is that lack of restaurant hospitality going to affect how you feel about your experience and the restaurant? Of course!
We talk a lot about the impact of hospitality in restaurants in our Learning System Course “ Delivering Your Ultimate Guest Experience.” In the course we show a proven way to evaluate and improve every touchpoint in your restaurant’s guest journey. It’s a process that many restaurant guest experience leaders have used to maximize the positive emotional outcomes for their guests.
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Webinar/Podcast
Exceptional Customer Service Practical Ways to Boost Guest Delight & Increase Loyalty
This webinar is designed for any FOH position, including managers to successfully implement the key to delighting your guests and building loyalty. We'll discuss the Two Dynamics of Customer Service, practical ways to boost connection with guests, and how to implement systems that directly impact the ...
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Online Course
Delighting Guests with Personalized Hospitality
Have you ever wished you could read a guest's mind? Ever wonder why certain guests are so hard to connect with, while with others it's a breeze? We may not be able to read our every guest's thought, but we sure can come close. Guests are constantly leaving little clues about the type of customer ...
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Training Video
Four Ways to Deliver Greater Hospitality Starting TODAY!
In your restaurant, focusing on hospitality should be a no-brainer, but many times, it gets overlooked or forgotten. When you lose sight of hospitality, the guest experience becomes an impersonal service, little more than a transaction. When you intentionally look for ways to connect with and delight ...
