Independent Restaurants

“Tips for Improving Your Tips” by David Hayden

"Tips for Improving Your Tips" by David Hayden

 

Although there are no doubt endless quantities of books written on customer service, there are very view that are written to the customer touch point that matters most in the restaurant industry…the servers!

David Hayden has done a great job of providing an absolute guide that is not only an indispensable guide for servers but a way for restaurants to ultimately train and reinforce their waitstaff effectiveness.  It is easy to see that David is speaking from many years of practical experience and not espousing theories that are not relevant to the restaurant business.

What is so critical about “Tips…” is that if everyone in the restaurant applied the techniques and principles in this book, not only will your actions produce simply delighted guests who are loyal to your business but you will have a happier waitstaff.  Simply delighted guests love to tell their friends and in this age of “social word of mouth”, and because of the law of attraction the restaurant will attract the best servers.

“Tips..” is a cornerstone of what I like to call “Building Your Brand from the Inside Out” and a must have for any restaurant that has servers that can make or break your business.  Ultimately, any good restaurant owner has already shared these processes with your staff but bringing in “Tips…” will help reinforce and insure that your servers are delivering the kind of service that you expect and most importantly the kind of service that will produce raving fans.

Quick link to buy the book

 

Disclosure: I am a restaurant guy who works for a food distributor. I share Winning Strategies, Processes, and Innovations for restaurants. “Tips…” is not only a winning strategy, it is a process that your staff can implement to make you and them more money. I am not compensated for this review, but hopeful that you (the restaurateur and your staff) will makes lots of money with this book.

Discover Your Next Favorite Dish


The Food Genius API (launching in November 2011) helps you find and share delicious dishes. From our massive database of more than 600,000 restaurants and 11,600,000 dishes, the Food Genius API suggests awesome dishes that your users will love.

What your guests are saying about you?

I discovered today that many of my independent restaurant friends are being talked about all over the internet. This entire social media deal is off the hook, mind boggling, confusing, and potentially the biggest pain in the butt that independent restaurants may ever face.

So many restaurants have established a presence in the social space using Twitter and Facebook and are busy trying to talk and listen to their fans, friends, followers, and everybody else in the space that has anything to say that somehow appears and or sounds to be relevant to the restaurant biz.

As they jump over the Farmville fences and dodge the Mafia bullets they can become beleagured trying to figure out what their customers are saying about them. Ocassionally, they even stop for a drink, a gift, accept friend requests, join fanpages, and read profiles. And every now and then, they stumble accross a comment about their restaurant. Alas, comments about your restaurant and they are positive, wow it’s all worth the effort, or so they think.

Did you know that there are sites on the internet like openTable, yelp, menupix, etc. where your guests are encouraged to write their own reviews? Do you know what they are saying to the world about your restaurant?

So now on top on your Twitter and Facebook you can add openTable, yelp, urbanspoon, and menupix to find out what is being said about your restaurant, right? There has to be a better way to mange this Pandoras box!

Yesterday, I discovered GuestPulse from InsideHospitality and what a discovery it was. Did you know that GuestPulse will find everything that is being said about your restaurant? GuestPulse can collect everything being said about your restaurant from virtually anywhere on the internet. They can provide a valuable resource for you to monitor what is being said about you.

I have cut and pasted the following directly from the GuestPulse site below without their permission, I hope they don’t mind. I am not compensated in any way for posting this, I am posting it because I see it as a valuable tool for my independent restaurant friends. Check out InsideHospitality, I think they really can help you manage your online reputation. They also offer 15 – 30 minute Webinars to help, I plan to get on one soon.

Why Choose GuestPulse™

to Manage Your Online Reputation?

We have ten reasons for you.

Reason #10 Our company is 100% completely Hospitality focused. This is all we do and know the industry like no other.

Reason #9 GuestPulse was conceived, designed and built from the ground up exclusively for the Hospitality industry.

Reason #8 GuestPulse scours over 50+ Million websites to find what anyone, anywhere is saying about you.

Reason #7 GuestPulse is your businesses Complete (ORM) Online Reputation Management solution.

Reason #6 Your guests are online and constantly sharing opinions about your brand. Discover what they’re saying and monitor the trends.

Reason #5 Communicate with your guests and influence their buying decisions. Become an active part of your own word of mouth and join the conversation.

Reason #4 Guest Pulse takes you further than any solution on the market. It starts with tailored and scalable services that help you attract new guests, drive sales, and grow your brand.

Reason #3 GuestPulse Is A Full Service Solution, we’re here to help you in managing your Online Reputation.

Reason #2 Completely custom designed solution for your unique operation and business.

Reason #1 Unparalleled Return On Investment (ROI).

Starting at $80 GuestPulse is priced so companies of every size can immediately begin seeing results and take an active role in their Online Reputation.

Why GuestPulse Is Valuable To Your Company

As you are aware, a good or bad experience can absolutely support or hurt your business. Often times, a guest will share their experiences with friends and family. Now, with the Web growing at a rapid pace, these comments can be seen by a large number of people (including potential customers) outside of the guest’s immediate online community. The result: guest feedback becomes more impactful and influential than ever before.

Put GuestPulse™ to work for you, and gain a partner who can help you leverage the power of social media. Not only can we quickly monitor conversations and easily segment them by influence/reach and tone — positive, neutral, or negative — we can empower you and your business to embrace and excel in your market and positively affect your guest satisfaction, sales, and bottom line.