Running head: SERVICE STRATEGIES

Service Strategies An Assignment Submitted by Name of Student Name of Establishment Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2012

SERVICE STRATEGIES

Table of Contents Introduction Service Blueprint Waterfront Cafe & Bar Offering of service

Page 3 3 3 4 5 5 6 6 6 7 8 8 9 11

Service Strategies Standardization Customization

Service Standards Hard Standards Soft Standards

Roles of Employees Roles of Customers Conclusion References

SERVICE STRATEGIES Service Strategies 1. Introduction

For an organization, which operates in the hospitality industry, the level and quality of services are the crucial factors which determine its success. Whether it is a caf, a restaurant, or a hotel, customer satisfaction should be a central part of the service strategy. There are multiple factors, which determine the customers overall experience of encountering with hospitality industry, such as quality of products, employees attitude, and atmosphere at the location. In this report we are going to analyze the service offering of Waterfront Cafe & Bar, identify the strategies and standards, which are implemented in this organization and discuss the role of employees and customers in the service process. 2. Service Blueprint 2.1. Waterfront Caf & Bar

Waterfront Caf & Bar is a top-notch dining and entertainment destination located in the Viaduct Basin. It offers wide range of services including serving food and beverages, live music, corporate dinners, and cocktail parties. It is a place where customers can have a quick business lunch, a luxurious dinner, or a drink. Regardless of the purpose of visit, the customers of Waterfront Caf & Bar always receive high-quality services thanks to the restaurants commitment to uttermost customer satisfaction. The restaurant is located at the luxurious district of the city, therefore it has to correspond with the declared status and meet the demands of sophisticated customers in order to stay competitive. Waterfront Caf & Bar is a quite large restaurant, which can seat more than 200 visitors both indoor and on the terrace. On the weekends the restaurants stays opened all night long and transforms into a night club, offering a wide range of alcohol drinks and entertainment shows.

SERVICE STRATEGIES 2.2. Offering of Service The restaurants services consist of tangible and intangible components, which form the experience of service encounter (Verma, 2008). Tangible components include food and beverages. At Waterfront Caf & Bar meals are prepared of high-quality fresh organic ingredients right before being served to the customers. The menu is highly diversified in

order to satisfy individual preferences of every customer. However, customers appreciate not only what is served, but also how it is served. The setting in which service encounter takes place is very important. The restaurants services belong to the category of personalinteractive services, in which performance, competence, and personality of service providers is very important (Kandampully, Mok, and Sparks, 2001). At Waterfront Caf & Bar a lot of attention is paid to how the employees treat customers, how they respond to their complaints and requests, and how they cope with their professional responsibilities. The standard scheme of service process at Waterfront Caf & Bar is as follows. Customers, who come into the restaurant, are greeted by a front waiter, who informs them about availability of tables and escorts them to their seats. Once the customers are seated, one of the hall waiters gives them menu, offers drinks, and consults them on the specifics of dishes if required. Then he quickly brings the drinks and takes the order. The dishes are served in a fixed sequence according to their type. During the time of stay, customers are attended by the waiter several times. The waiter makes sure that they have everything they need, takes away empty plates and changes ash trays. At the same time a hall manager asks the guests about how they feel and whether they are satisfied with the work of the waiter. Once the guests are finished with their meals, the waiter offers deserts. When the customers wish to leave, the waiter brings the bill, which the customers pay to the cashier at the counter on their way out. The front waiter thanks them for visiting and welcomes them to come back again.

SERVICE STRATEGIES This is a standard procedure, which takes place all the time regardless of the time of the day, purpose of visit and number of guests. Each of the employees has his own responsibilities, which he is obliged to carry out professionally. The waiter has to know the specifics of the menu perfectly. The bartender has to know the technology of the beverage preparation. Hall mangers need to have outstanding leadership and communication skills. Only when everyone is in the right place doing their job, the high-level performance of the organization can be achieved. 3. 3.1. Service strategies Standardization

The nature of services imply that they are inseparable from consumers, cannot be stored, involve participation of both deliverer and receiver, and differ according to the context (Parry, Newnes, and Huang, 2011). Therefore, it is harder and for the same reason more important to standardize them than goods. At the Waterfront Caf & Bar standardization serves several purposes: it enables quality control, saves money, and helps create a unique style of the place. Standardization creates measurable criteria according to which performance is evaluated. Such standards refer to the food storage conditions, proportions of basic ingredients in dishes, preparation techniques, and sanitary norms. These standards were developed by professionals and have proven to be effective over time. Therefore any deviations from them might cause reduction in quality of products resulting in customer dissatisfaction. With the help of standardization Waterfront Caf & Bar also reduces costs. Each of the employees has standard responsibilities, which they are paid for. Professionals, whose knowledge and skills exceed the requirements, still get paid the same amount of money. Also, fixed working hours enable the restaurant to save money. Even though Waterfront Caf & Bar is opened till late, its kitchen closes at certain time, which keeps the costs of running the equipment and chefs wages at the fixed level. Finally,

SERVICE STRATEGIES standards which refer to the design of dishes, table layout, ways of approaching the guests, lighting, and music, create a special atmosphere in the restaurant and distinguish it from the competitors. 3.2. Customization

Customization is an important principle, which a high-class restaurant should follow. Waterfront Caf & Bar is visited by hundreds of people, each of whom have their own tastes and preferences. As any other self-respecting organization, it has to take into account individual characteristics of its clients. Waterfront Caf & Bar customizes its services in order to satisfy needs and wants of its guests and provide the most pleasant and comfortable experience to them. For this purpose, the restaurant created a menu, which includes different types of food: vegetarian, seafood, meat and poultry, burgers and sandwiches, salads, pasta, Mexican food, and deserts. It also offers brunches for those, who come in the morning, so that people can enjoy meals they are used to having for breakfast. People can also request some alterations to the original recipes of some dishes if they have food allergies or wish to make their meal lower in calories. Customers also can choose where to sit (inside or outside) and can even ask to be served by a particular waiter. Of course, customization requires additional expenses; however it supports a high status of the restaurant, making these expenses worthwhile. 4. Service Standards 4.1. Hard Standards

Hard standards provide restaurants management with quantifiable parameters of performance, which can be easily monitored (Mudie and Pirrie, 2006). They enable quality control of the waiters job. Waterfront Caf & Bar strives for providing the best possible and timely service to its customers; therefore, the following hard standards are applied: 1) A waiter has to serve no more than 5 tables at a time;

SERVICE STRATEGIES 2) A hall manager has to check each table at least once to make sure the guests are satisfied; 3) Ash trays need to be changed every 20 minutes; 4) Second course should be brought 10 minutes later than the first course. Hard standards provide opportunity to measure performance of each particular employee and trace the changes in the overall performance over time. 4.2. Soft Standards

Unlike hard standards, soft standards are difficult to measure, since they do not have any quantifiable indicators. They rather take form of recommendations, which the employees should be guided by. Such standards are concerned with interaction between employees and customers and are aimed at making the guests experience of communication with employees a pleasant as possible and at creating a friendly atmosphere in the restaurant. Waterfront Caf & Bar applies the following soft standards to its services: 1) Customers should be greeted and showed out with a smile; 2) Customers should be patiently listened to and not interrupted; 3) Communication should proceed in a friendly manner based on the customer is always right principle. Even though soft standards are hard to measure, their completion should be controlled by the restaurants management. One of the ways is having a hall manager check the tables and ask the guests whether the waiters are doing their job properly. The other option is to oversee the employees performance from the distance and make remarks. The visitors can also receive small questionnaires together with their bills, in which they will be able to express concerns about and suggestions to the work of the waiters.

SERVICE STRATEGIES 5. Roles of Employees

In the service process front-line employees play the most important role. They are the face of the organization; they contribute greatly into creation of impression about and attitude towards it. Employees participate in communicating the brand to the customers, and the way they do it can either enhance or diminish the companys brand value (Olayan, 2011). They are also a valuable source of information about customers, which can help managers enhance the service process (Bitner, Booms, and Mohr, 1994). In the services process there are no meaningless factors. Everything is important including how the customers are greeted, how long they have to wait to be seated, how long it takes a waiter to take and bring the order, how much attention the customers receive from waiters, how their problems and concerns are dealt with, and the way the customers are treated on their way out. The way the waiters behave determine the overall atmosphere in the restaurant. Even the best meal can be spoiled by rudeness and inadequate behaviour of waiters and hall mangers. Neutral and formalized service process does not distinguish a restaurant from the competitors and does not encourage customers to come back. Only first-class personalized service can create an unforgettable experience of visiting a restaurant and encourage customers to visit it again. That is why Waterfront Caf & Bar always makes sure that its employees possess skills and capabilities, needed to provide excellent services. The most important of them are: ability to learn quickly, leadership and problem-solving skills (for hall managers), job-related skills, communication and teamwork skills, politeness and positive attitude, good memory and attentiveness. 6. Roles of Customers Provision of hospitality services is a two-side process, which involves service providers and customers. Although the role of the first is more formalized and significant, the outcome of the process depends on both of the parties. Depending on the customers

SERVICE STRATEGIES expectations, needs, desires, preferences, and even personal characteristics, the service encounter might be successful or disastrous and the employees are not always fully responsible for the outcomes of the service process (Bitner, Booms, and Mohr, 1994). While the behaviour of the employees is regulated by the standards and professional code of conduct, customers are free to express their attitudes and opinions. Moreover, all of them

participate in the service encounter differently. For example, when customers find the quality of service unsatisfactory, some of them will restrain from complaints and keep their opinion to themselves, the others will get infuriated and demand reimbursement, and still others will explain their concerns to the waiter and try to find the solution together. The task of the employees is to find a personal approach to every customer. People tend to share their experience with others, creating a word of mouth, which is a very powerful image-building tool, especially in the service industry. Frustrated customers spread negative word of mouth and that can damage the reputation of the restaurant greatly. On the other hand, if the customers are satisfied, they will recommend the place to the others, thus attracting new visitors. That is why the employees of Waterfront Caf & Bar always need to make sure that the customers are satisfied with the service encounter. Customers can be a valuable source of ideas on how the performance of the restaurant can be improved. At Waterfront Caf & Bar guests are encouraged to give feedback, so that the managers of the restaurant determine what changes should be made in order to achieve greater customer satisfaction. Observation of customer behaviour (where they prefer to sit, how long they stay, what dishes prefer) can also provide some information about their preferences and use it for performance improvement. 7. Conclusion In this report we have analyzed the service process at Waterfront Caf & Bar, discussed the importance of standardization and customization, identified hard and soft

SERVICE STRATEGIES standards, and the roles of employees and customers at this restaurant. We can make a conclusion that provision of high-quality services is possible only when the employees

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possess the required skills, achieve the standards and practice personalized approach to every customer.

SERVICE STRATEGIES References

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Bitner, M.J., Booms, B.H., & Mohr, L.A. (1994). Critical service encounters: the employees viewpoint. The Journal of Marketing, 58(4), pp. 95 106. Kandampully, J., Mok, C., Sparks, B. (Eds.). (2001). Service quality management in hospitality, tourism, and leisure. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Hospitality Press. Mudie, P. & Pirrie, A. (2006). Services marketing management (3rd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. Olayan, N.K. (2011). Exploring the employees perspective on service branding. Retrieved from http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/1215/AlOlayanN.pdf?sequen ce=3. Parry, G., Newnes, L., & Huang, X. (2011). Goods, products and services. In M. Macintyre, G. Parry, & J. Angelis (Eds.), Service design and delivery (19 29). New York, NY: Springer. Verma, H.V. (2008). Services marketing: texts and cases. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley.