Measure Your Service Just as You Measure Your Drinks
Because service is such an important restaurant ingredient, it’s critical to try to measure it. Setting up systems to do that doesn’t need to be elaborate, complex or unduly time-consuming. Many successful methods are informal and simple.
Creating a customer feedback system gives you the opportunity to discover potential problems early and do something about them. But to be effective, your methods of gathering and measuring customer feedback must be consistent, and you and your staff must review and study the results frequently.
Because service is an elusive and intangible concept, the more customer feedback you can acquire the better (as long as the process doesn’t annoy the customer). The first line of feedback is your staff’s observations. If you ask them for their opinions and show that you are open to candid responses, your staff can provide a wealth of information on what’s working and what’s not. Moreover, they’ll appreciate your interest, and respect that you care about what is happening on the floor. Periodically managers need to ask: “How’s service going?” If there is a problem, the servers will generally be the first to know (right after the customer) and steps can be initiated to correct problems.
See full article here http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/301.cfm
