Customer Service: Getting It Right

Service missteps are unavoidable, but they occur less often at the best-run operations because staff is trained to avoid them. Management at several top-tier restaurants—including The Four Seasons and Canlis—offer insights on what is required to get service right from the moment guests enter. Avoid these common service snafus to ensure a positive customer experience.

By Derek Gale, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 6/1/2007

Julian Niccolini, managing partner of The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City, says servers should never enter or exit a dining room empty-handed. Be honest with guests about service mistakes, says Canlis Maître d’ David Kim.

It’s a universal chorus heard across the industry: Great service is an essential part of the dining experience. Exactly what that means defies easy descriptions, though. Entirely subjective and marked by nuances that are specific to given situations and settings, it varies based on the person being asked, the place, and sometimes diners’ moods or whims.

"I can forgive a burnt steak or a burnt-out light bulb, but not rude or bad service," says Kelley Jones, vice president of restaurant operations for Philadelphia-based Starr Restaurant Organization. Jones adds that core tenets of good service are smiling and making eye contact, tactics that allow servers to be warm and engaging.

Nick Peyton, partner and maître d’ at Cyrus restaurant in Healdsburg, Calif., is big on the warmth factor, too. First and foremost, service must be caring, he says. But he believes it also needs to be informed, helpful and intelligent.

"When you ask a question about food, you want an answer that applies to the question," he says. "When you say something, you want the feeling of your request being understood. Communication is key in service."

A Tough Situation

Although Jones may be able to forgive a steak marked by too many degrees, for others, that might be a service disaster. "Definitely, not cooking steaks to the proper temperature is a big [gaffe]," says Chris Clifford, general manager for St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis.

The easiest way to avoid that steak mistake is to let guests know what they can expect when they order a steak cooked medium rare or medium, he says, as preparations tend to vary across restaurants. In the last few months, St. Elmo has even gone a step further, adding descriptions of its cooking temperatures to the menu "just to make it even more clear about what our interpretation is," Clifford says.

The second part of getting this right, he notes, is striving to cook steaks to the temperature ordered so they needn’t be sent back to the kitchen. To ensure that this happens consistently, St. Elmo grill cooks receive a weekly report on their recook percentages. There is a threshold for what’s allowable, Clifford says, and cooks who have the lowest recook percentages are rewarded.

Standards Vary

As Julian Niccolini, managing partner of The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City points out, some aspects of service that may be acceptable in more-casual environments do not fly at white-tablecloth restaurants.

"You see people serving dishes from every different direction. You see people stacking up plates, which, in [a fine-dining restaurant], is not acceptable," he says. "A lot of people in the restaurant business, instead of handling a glass by the stem, grab it by the top. Here, we are constantly reminding [our servers], and if we see something like that happening, we correct it."

Peyton agrees that service standards differ across segments. He notes that in more-casual environments, the mechanics of service are somewhat less important—guests usually don’t notice, much less complain, if two dishes come out first and two others follow right behind them.

But at Cyrus, it’s completely different. "We want our staff to be warm and friendly, but the mechanics are very formal," he says. "When the silver is set, how the food is delivered to the table, how the food is represented—all of these things take on much more of a ballet."

For example, six food runners may deliver a course together so that they can put down all the guests’ plates at the same time. "This makes people feel like they are in a very special place," he says.

Regardless of the environment, says Alan Seidman, chair of The Hospitality College for Johnson & Wales University’s Florida campus, one of the keys to good service is considering the customer’s specific needs.

He says that in Florida, hosts or hostesses often forget that they are dealing with an older population and seat elderly guests in the back of a restaurant without thinking about the burden this could represent. Being aware of and responsive to customers who may have limited mobility is good service, he notes.

Similarly, when waiting on a man and a woman, servers should not make assumptions about who will pay the bill, says Marc Epstein, general manager for Four Corners Tavern Group in Chicago.

"Picking up the credit card, not reading a woman’s name and then returning the card to the man—if you want to set a woman off, do that," he says.

Common Sense

Clearly, the managers at Canlis restaurant in Seattle know something about hospitality: The restaurant was a finalist for this year’s James Beard Foundation outstanding-service award. But they say the biggest gaffes and snafus deal with pretty basic matters.

"We always tell our servers to be truthful and honest and not to cover anything up," says David Kim, service director and maître d’. "We’d rather have them say, ‘I screwed up’ or ‘I don’t know.’ Winging it is something we try to avoid at all costs."

Mark Canlis, managing owner, concurs and emphasizes that guests don’t want to hear excuses or blame-shifting. "Don’t come tell me your kitchen is backed up, or that you and the chef are not getting along, or that you’re sorry but another server took your dessert," Canlis says. "Don’t pit me, the guest, against you or anyone in your restaurant. Just come and say, ‘We’ve made a mistake, and we’re sorry. How can we make it up to you?’"

Simple things like posture and language are important, too, Canlis and Kim say. "Slouching servers or service staff who lean against walls and ledges just sends the wrong message," Kim notes. For Canlis, the overused empty greeting has to go.

"‘How are we doing today?’ That drives me crazy," he says. "I don’t know—we just walked in, we don’t know you, we’ve never met you. Another way to say it would be, ‘How are you this evening?’ You need to care. The snafu [is] not caring."

But servers aren’t the only ones who must take care to serve guests properly. Canlis says that hosts should address guests by name when they walk in and walk out. "You have an amazing opportunity to learn someone’s name, especially for reservation restaurants," he says. "You’ve got to care enough to learn someone’s name."

Kim and Canlis aren’t shy about saying that service starts with managers. They agree that lazy management contributes to the repetition of certain gaffes.

"There are too many restaurants in America where the manager just oversees and is not encouraging great customer service," Kim says. "Too many restaurant managers are just complacent."

On the flip side, Canlis says he has been to casual and quick-service restaurants that feature "amazing" service. "I attribute that to the leadership," he says. "People are willing to be held to a high standard. Everyone wants to be part of something with pride."

Ten Service Tips

Julian Niccolini, managing partner of The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City, offers 10 suggestions for great service:

1 Service starts with the welcome. "Two?" shouldn’t be the first thing people hear when they walk into an establishment—guests shouldn’t be greeted with a number. Rather, the host should welcome guests with a "good afternoon," a "good evening" or even a "hello."

2 Good service is about liking people and enjoying the opportunity to serve them. Almost any mistake can be forgiven of a person who is hospitable and wants to make people happy.

3 Great service is about anticipating needs and wishes. That includes making sure guests have all the utensils they need for the next course in advance, refilling water glasses before they are empty and offering another round of drinks. Additionally, the server should pour wine as needed unless otherwise instructed.

4 Another service mistake is made when dishes are cleared before everyone has finished eating. Of course, some people want dishes cleared immediately. If a guest requests that, the server should follow through. But without a specific request to the contrary, clearing should never be done until everyone has finished eating.

5 Unless the restaurant is casual, the check should not be presented until it has been requested. Offering the check too soon can be interpreted as eagerness for the table to leave.

6 Waiters and floor staff should never argue or huddle in conversation near a table. Regardless of what service-staff members need to discuss, the conversation should not be conducted around guests.

7 Waiters, captains and bussers should not go anywhere near the guests’ table until they have looked at it and the guests to determine if something is needed. The server shouldn’t interrupt conversations. A simple smile will give guests the chance to ask for something the waiter cannot anticipate.

8 Likewise, a server never should enter or exit the dining room floor with empty hands. There always is something that needs to be removed from or added to a table.

9 A server should never tell a customer in front of his or her guests that a credit card has been declined. Instead, the server should tell the customer that he or she has a phone call. All potentially embarrassing information should be conveyed with kindness in privacy.

10 Finally, every guest should be thanked for visiting when they leave. Like a warm welcome, a sincere farewell makes people feel good and encourages them to visit again.

Something to Talk About

Industry insiders recognize plenty of mistakes to avoid and have a few ideas on how to serve up great service, but outsiders—the guests—know best what they and their fellow restaurant patrons find frustrating. With that in mind, here are a few customer complaints from various online forums:

The service was unbelievably poor—it took over half an hour just to get our salads after we ordered them, and they were nothing special. The rest of our food came after an hour, after we harassed a server (not ours; she seemed to ignore us).
– K.C. (From menupages.com)

The maître d’ told us twice that she would need the table at 8:45. We ordered cocktails, wine, appetizers and entrées. The maître d’ and two other employees, including the owner/chef, continued to remind us about the deadline throughout our meal. It was thoroughly off-putting and entirely unnecessary, as we got out of there at 8:00. If they really need the table, can’t they just be stealthily quick with our orders instead of guilting us into speed-eating?
– An Eater (From eater.com)

The server had disgusting hands like she had just dug in the backyard or worked under the hood. The cup she gave me was nasty, with some foreign object hanging from the side of the lip.
– M.A. (From yelp.com)

Our server was also our bartender and coat-check guy. He refused to look you in the eye or acknowledge requests, although after you asked a second time, he was very snide in pointing out that he heard you the first time.
– dnukes (From citysearch.com)

My husband ordered a certain type of scotch, and we waited 10 minutes to find out they didn’t have that. Our waiter recommended the crab cakes, then came back after 10 minutes to say they didn’t have them! – N.G. (From metromix.com)