The F&B forum: reviewing the UAE's outlets

Ethos Consultancy's Ryan McMaster.

Before coming to Dubai, Ryan McMaster ran a restaurant and bar in Canada, where he also trained up numerous servers and bar staff.

Now, he is a service quality consultant at Ethos Consultancy, one of the leading customer service consultancy firms in the Middle East.

Here, McMaster explains why customer complaints (in moderation) are a good thing for any outlet.

Let’s start with the assumption that if you’re reading this article, you’ve been out for drinks or dinner at some point in the past year.

If you have, then you’ve probably wondered why the service is so slow, or mulled over why a drink at one restaurant is made so much faster than at another.

In some instances, you may even have thought: “This is the best service in the world!”

So why can’t it be consistent?

I’m here to help answer some of these questions — and/or become the collective punch-bag for the food and beverage industry in the Gulf!

While perfecting the art of changing kegs during my time running a bar, I have trained some top bartenders and servers. (Not the bottle juggling types, I’m talking about the ones who make your drink quickly and perfectly.)

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Essentially, I like to think I know a thing or two about what brings customers in and what keeps them coming back.

We all know that bad, overpriced food is a deal-breaker. So for now I’ll leave this feature of some Gulf restaurants alone and focus on the service.

Let’s face it, bad experiences happen in every restaurant — and servers are human, contrary to popular belief.

What differentiates a great restaurant from a poor one, other than the food and service, is how they handle complaints (if they even know about them).

In my opinion, every good manager should be searching their restaurant high and low for the slightest complaint, in an effort to blow customers away.

Whoever thinks a complaint in a restaurant is a bad thing probably won’t be seeing any sales increases soon, especially with tightened purse-straps and thinning wallets we’re seeing at the moment.

I use this as my starting point for most service related conversations in the Gulf, as my personal frustration lies in the way restaurants handle things when they go wrong.

Personally, I love food and the occasional drink. Even more than that, I love talking and hearing about food and drink experiences — both positive and negative.

So don’t be shy; tell us about your experiences, the good and the bad. Ask us some questions and we’ll be more than happy to offer an insight into what makes some places so great and others not so great.

Until next time, good eating!

Ryan.
 

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