Momentous Minutiae (2/2)

It is as simple as this: your guests will inevitably have an increasingly worse time as the accumulation of distractions drops them into increasingly lower states of mind. Things they wouldn’t even notice at a higher level become intimidating at lower levels. Yet, without the weight of these distractions, people are likely to remain in good moods and enjoy themselves. This is how minutiae destroy your business. A few of these details are obviously sudden death. For example, if you send guests to the hospital with food poisoning don’t expect to see them back as patrons. If your staff embarrasses a businessperson in front of his or her clients during an important luncheon, that guest is history. Most of the points are not as terminal as that. They are just distractions and petty annoyances. But remember the idea of weights on the balloon or the straw that breaks the camel’s back. If you want to be a legend, you can’t afford to dismiss anything as too trivial. Why Guests Don’t Come Back It may help to think of the quality of your guests’ dining experience as a game. Because people want to have a good time in restaurant, you start this game with a perfect score, say 100 points. As guests approach the restaurant and progress through their meals, you gain or lose points. Details can raise or lower your score in the guest’s mind. Most are things for which you will lose points when they happen, but you won’t necessarily gain points if they don’t. On the plus side, there are a few unexpected touches for which you can gain points and improve your score. It’s not fair, but it’s the way human nature works. There is no particular point value to anything other than the value arbitrarily given by the guest. For example, something one person might not even notice could cause someone else to walk out in a rage! As we have already discussed, people’s perceptions are a function of their states of mind. The lower they get, the more serious and threatening life appears to them. The more threatening something appears; the more points it costs you. Your guests are not aware of it, but they keep a mental score. As they leave the restaurant, they assign a subconscious point total to their experience. The more positive the experience is; the higher your score. Your point total also has relevance in comparison to your competition. If, for example, you receive 75 points and your competitor get 80 points and you will be in trouble. One other thing: The higher the check average, the higher the necessary points total to satisfy your guests. People have higher expectations of $50 dinner than they do of a fast food lunch…and they should. Exceeding expectations creates delighted guests. If you score higher than people expected, they will love you, at least for now. if you score less than they expected, no matter how good a job you do, you won’t be on their “A” list. Worst yet, if you are inconsistent-up one time and down the next-your guests will not trust you. When people mistrust your restaurant, you must score higher to reach the same level of guest satisfaction. For every person (in relation to every individual restaurant), there is a score so low it will cause the person never to patronize the place again. Excerpt from Restaurant Basics: Why guests don’t come back…and what you can do about it/Bill Marvin, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992.