Sales Director Pete Garraway of Hospo Check talks Customer Service

PRLog (Press Release) - Jan. 13, 2013 - I’m not really a big fan of statistics as you can often make them say whatever you want them to. But sometimes they do make you think. At the recent launch of the 2013 Zagat London Restaurant Survey, Tim Zagat announced that a massive seventy-three per cent of all customer complaints in London restaurants relate to front-of house. A statistic that is even more powerful when you look at it in reverse and think that all other aspects of a customer’s experience (including some fairly crucial things like the quality and price of the food) are covered by just 27 per cent of complaints. Market Force Europe also found that 35 per cent of the 5,000 consumers they polled said that service was the most important aspect of a restaurant compared with just 18 per cent saying the same for price. 77 per cent also said that they would leave an outlet early due to poor service.

We all know that statistics can be misleading and these ones in particular purely focus on London restaurants, but when I think about my own experiences when out at pubs, restaurants and cafes anywhere these numbers don’t seem to be too far wide of the mark. They also raise some important questions about how we should be approaching the problems faced by the industry today. If twice as many people consider service to be important as those who consider price to be, shouldn’t staff training be twice as important as discounting? If over three quarters of customers are likely to leave if there is poor service, then doesn’t the price point become irrelevant if the service is not there to back it up? Less staff training can seem like an easy cost cutting option, but does it end up costing you in the long run?

Even leaving aside the specific problems facing the hospitality industry today, the financial crisis that has plagued the last 5 years has ensured that consumers are counting their pennies like never before. Anyone selling anything from pints to pasta has to make their product attractive to their consumers, and quality and price obviously come into that. But whilst finding the right price point for your customers and your business is crucial, when your staff are the difference between a customer buying that second bottle or coming back again next time - or simply staying to pay the bill - it is obvious that customer service remains just as important as the quality or price of the food and drink on offer.

At Hospo Check we put the Customer Experience at the centre of everything we do. Our online hub makes staff training simple and cost effective to implement, easy to follow and straightforward to evaluate; our Stock Taking services pick out the trends to identify what your customers actually prefer to drink; our Mystery Shoppers provide professional, constructive feedback so that you know exactly what your customers are experiencing; and if, like me, you’re not so big on ‘stats’, you can use our Customer Feedback section to find out what your customers really think about your business. So let us help you make sure that customer service remains at the core of your business, helping to drive profits and to bring happy customers back time after time.

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