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.
Well, it’s been over a month since our last column — and not much has changed regarding the service landscape of the restaurant industry!
Firstly, I’d like to thank ‘Simon’ and ‘Dubai Resident’ for their comments and questions following our last column.
These gave me lots of good ideas on what to cover this month, which should also offer some valuable feedback at the same time.
There are a few sayings that I’ve always been a strict believer in when running a restaurant. I’d like to share a couple of them.
The first is: “I might be running a restaurant, but I’m in the people business”.
The second is: “My job is to take care of my staff, and it’s my staff’s job to take care of the customers”.
There is no way around it: in a competitive market, if you’re not winning at the people game inside your restaurant, it will only ever achieve a fraction of its potential success.
Allow me to explain why.
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Like most businesses, there are two main indicators of success (sales and profit) and this is no different in the restaurant industry.
In my opinion, what drives both of these is staff.
Dubai Resident, this is what I think owners and managers are getting wrong.
Of course menu, location and interior are important aspects of restaurants and bars and it seems all the focus and spending goes here.
This might get a restaurant off to a hot start, but in the long term, it’s the restaurant’s employees that drive consistent sales and profit increases.
Treating your staff well — which includes proper training, decent wages, incentives, fair scheduling and a fun yet professional working environment — will decrease turnover of staff drastically.
As Simon alluded to, staff retention allows servers to build up regular customers and develop relationships with patrons.
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Sep 29, 2009 , Saudi Arabia
Very rarely now-a-days do you find a GM with alround experience in both rooms and F&B. I can check into any hotel in Dubai and tell you what the speciality of the GM is. Strangely I then find that the deputy has the same specialism. Leadership comes from the top two or three managers. Most are ro...
Sep 13, 2009 , United Arab Emirates
Management certainly don't, owners do care, but only about profit. Too many diners are being taken for a ride. I'm glad the authorities are tackling hygiene, but it is up to the customer to avoid the rip-off restaurants where staff are bored and underpaid.