Issue #16 July 2011
The Service We Need
I was in Cairns last week, and having left Townsville very early in the morning, I decided to stop by the Esplanade for breakfast. Over my bacon, eggs and coffee, I got to thinking about the obvious fact that there was not as many people around as my previous visits and how the tourism industry can combat global economic instability coupled with a high and rising $A? I think one of the answers was presented to me at breakfast. Service! The service I received at breakfast was not bad, but equally, it wasn't good. It was just OK. It was slow, but not so slow as to be annoying, and could otherwise be described as minimalist.
In the late 1970s, I worked with a chef who shared a piece of wisdom I have never forgotten. It was his view that people don't go to restaurants to eat, "they go to be recognised". Just as we greet and recognise visitors to our home, it is even more important to greet and recognise each and every customer in the hospitality industry. I thoroughly enjoy entering a cafe, restaurant or bar to have a staff member recognise my existence in a warm and friendly welcome. To be asked "can I get you a drink" or "can I take your order", or something equally inane does not in any way recognise or welcome the customer. That said, how often are these the first words you here?
Visitors from Europe, North America and Asia are used to a culture of service, where good service is rewarded through tips and those providing such service work hard to boost their income. I don't believe there is a strong service culture in Australia, particularly in regional Australia, yet I see service is one area where we can lift our game to provide better value and significantly improve the visitor experience.
My tip? If you're in a business that relies on service, every month identify three actions or activities that will improve service and work positively with your staff to ingrain these actions.
Think Strawberries - and create a service culture
There's a seven letter word that is that heart of everything in the hospitality industry - SERVICE.
As stated in our previous article, we're not very good at service in regional Australia. I recently heard an entire dinner table of people bag the poor service at various venues on Magnetic Island, which is not good for word-of-mouth referrals.
There are many theories on why we have poor service here – Aussies don’t like to serve people; it’s not part of our culture; poor pay doesn’t make for a commitment to service; there’s no reward for putting yourself out.
I think it's about leadership. Many years ago in 1984, a client gave me a speech she’d heard at a conference in the USA. This speech, titled ‘Think Strawberries’, is now a classic in the hospitality industry. It’s also a case study in solid management principles leading to the development of a business-wide service culture and increased profitability.
The speech was given by James Levinson to the American Marketing Association in 1973 at the end of his tenure as CEO of the New York Plaza, which he transformed from a loss-making hotel into a hugely successful and profitable enterprise.
How did he achieve this? His speech describes how he turned the hotel’s 1400 employees into a highly motivated sales team using a program called ‘Think Strawberries’. The entire speech comprises stories and anecdotes, with every point brought out by a story, taken mostly from Levinson’s own experience.
His approach was to make every single member of staff, from the laundry to the front desk, think and act as if they were hosting a guest in their own home. Over the years, this approach has been used as a basis for many hospitality businesses training programs.
Principles such as ensuring that all hotel staff were knowledgeable about the hotel’s products and services, remembering guests’ names, employee orientation and management by wandering around (MBWA) should all be standard management repertoire today; they were radical in 1973.
"Think Strawberries" is the easily remembered theme of Levinson’s speech, which meant "Ask for the order" — and was used by the chambermaids, waiters, bellmen, captains and sales executives — to upsell and upgrade the hotel’s services. What started as an effort to sell dessert (strawberries sold better than pastry since everyone was on a diet) became upgrading the single room to a suite, or upgrading to a suite with a view….
You should read the speech - click here to see a transcript- and I’m sure you canfind an idea or inspiration for improving service standards in your own business.