Article: “Customer service with a snarl” (Aug.2006)

excerpt:
“Customer service has eroded over the past decade for a variety of reasons — low wages, lack of training, exponential growth, to name a few. Few companies have the blend of corporate culture, training and opportunities for advancement that makes employees surpass expectations…

…In the restaurant business, quality is difficult to gauge because most customers don’t complain — they simply go elsewhere. To amp up its service, Furio began a day-after-dining program to gauge customer satisfaction: The Scottsdale restaurant picks diners at random from the reservation book and contacts them about their experience.

“We look at every single comment,” says Stephanie Eglin, director of marketing for Anthem Restaurants, which owns Furio. “When somebody gives negative feedback, the owner himself makes the call if he’s able to. This type of endeavor is not costly, and we’re able to gain a lot of valuable feedback…”

source: “Customer service with a snarl” by Marija Potkonjak (East Valley Tribune, Aug.14,2006)

Article: “Chowhound: Rave reviews’ smell suspect” (Aug.2006)

excerpt:
“Chowhound.com, a popular online message board devoted to those in search of good food and drink, has banned mentions of a Cambridge restaurant from its site.

Chowhound alleges it was receiving a suspicious number of rave reviews of the 4-month-old Conundrum in Harvard Square, many of them coming from the same computer connection.

“We’ve had a blitz of postings with rapturous praise for Conundrum from many, many posters, all of whom are utter newcomers to the site, and our users have been complaining that it seems like we might be getting played,” Chowhound co-founder Jim Leff said. “I’m not trying to do anything but run an honest food discussion, and it’s my job to defend that discussion when we feel like it’s being taken advantage of.”

source: “Chowhound: Rave reviews’ smell suspect” by Donna Goodison (Boston Herald, Aug.12, 2006)

Article: “Lehndorff: Spell-check those menus” (Aug.2006)

excerpt:
“I should be relaxing during these dog days of summer, but big questions plague my overheated mind. I get picky, picky, picky and wonder:

Why don’t people who write restaurant menus use spell-checker or have someone proofread them before they print them? I constantly catch spelling and grammatical errors among the starters and entrees. When I see “prosciutto wrapped shrimp,” I wonder why there isn’t a hyphen connecting the modifiers, i.e., “prosciutto-wrapped.”

It makes me think there are other details that have slipped below the management’s radar…”

source: “Lehndorff: Spell-check those menus” by John Lehndorff (Rocky Mountain News, Aug.4,2006)

related link:
Resource: Customers list their restaurant pet peeves and annoyances [WaiterBell Blog]

Research: Hospitality Technology’s “2006 POS Scoreboard - Rating Top POS Systems”

excerpt:
“Now in its third year, the POS Scoreboard offers the industry’s only ranking of the top foodservice point-of-sale software companies based on company size, number of installations and user satisfaction.

…How do POS software systems compare in the opinion of foodservice operators? The user satisfaction scores offer charts and analyses of how systems fared in the criteria deemed most important by the operators themselves.”

source: “2006 POS Scoreboard - Rating Top POS Systems” (Hospitality Technology, 2006) [pdf, free registration req.]

Article: “In good businesses, it’s all about the service” (Jul.2006)

excerpt:
“…At a Ruby Tuesday restaurant, the wait after being seated was interminable.

Finally, after about 10 minutes, a waiter from another part of the restaurant walked by, noticed the lack of menus, drinks and silverware, and asked if we’d been helped.

He brought us our drinks and told our waiter that we were, in fact, there and waiting for service.

By the time the young waiter for our area showed up, he knew we weren’t happy. Perhaps it was the grim look on our faces, as if we were undergoing surgery, or the terse speech…”

source: “In good businesses, it’s all about the service” by Garrison Wells (The Sun News, Jul.28,2006)

Resource: Customers list their restaurant pet peeves and annoyances

Are you wondering what customers find annoying when they are dining in a restaurant?

Here are links to help answer the question:

Waiter, There’s a Bee in My Bonnet [Restaurant.org]

Are you being served? [San Francisco Chronicle]

Some Diners’ Pet Peeves About Restaurants [NYTimes]

A menu of ‘don’ts’ for restaurant servers [North County Times]

Pet Peeves: At Your Service? [Food & Wine]

What’s your biggest pet peeve when dining out? [Gapers Block]

Restaurant Pet Peeves [Cooking With Amy]

Surly won’t cut it - Reviewer shares her pet peeves [Stacee Sledge]

Surviving Restaurants [BBC]

Resource: Forums, Discussions, and Boards for Restaurant-Goers

Popular Forums, Discussions, and Boards for Restaurant-Goers

EGullet
Chowhound
Epicurious
Yelp
Roadfood
Mouthfuls

related link:
A Review of Some Restaurant Discussion Sites [Bay Area Bites]

Article: “What Your Customers Want” (July 2005)

excerpt:
“…RESTAURANT HOSPITALITY recently commissioned consumer research to provide original and actionable information about consumer usage and ordering habits that you can take to the bank.

The research captured consumer frequency of eating at full-service restaurants on weekdays and weekends; how often they eat at your restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner; the types of restaurants they’ve eaten at in the past six months and what makes them want to return to a restaurant.

…We, the editors of RESTAURANT HOSPITALITY, hope that this consumer research will give you a better insight into dealing with customers. We’re convinced that it will confirm information that you may have already believed in your mind, while also revealing areas of opportunity that you may not have known existed. Use this information wisely and watch your business grow.”

source: “What Your Customers Want” (Restaurant Hospitality, July 2005)

Article: “What A Dish!” (Jul.2006)

excerpt:
“To some camera-happy diners, food is so gorgeous, so sensual, that it just has to be photographed — and posted on a blog.

…”If you look at the photography, the very loving manner in which these photographs are shot, they are meant to tantalize and titillate the viewer,” said Jarrett Byrnes, a graduate student who lives in Sebastopol, Calif., and runs Food Porn Watch, a Web site with links to almost 1,000 food blogs around the world, most with extensive food photography.

…And if diners can go to a Web site like eGullet and see that the mozzarella dish comes as, say, a cheese balloon filled with tomato foam, or some such delight, it’s a little like learning the ending of a thriller before heading to the movie.

Then again, Achatz admits to checking out food blogs before heading to a restaurant, and allows that in some cases, photos of the food can generate excitement in an establishment for reluctant diners.”

source: “What A Dish!” by Trine Tsouderos (Chicago Tribune, Jul.20,2006)

related link: Food Porn Watch

Press Release: ” 75 Percent of Mystery Shoppers Say Customer Service Has Not Improved With the Addition of Summer Help” (Jul.2006)

excerpt:
“Mystery Shoppers Weigh In on Impact of Summer Help on Customer Service; Participants Spend More Than 5,250 Hours A Month Shopping 3,500 Locations

With the summer season in full swing, many retailers and restaurants across the United States have hired part-time summer help. Overall, this extra help has not resulted in an improvement in customer service, according to more than 75 percent of mystery shoppers who attended the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) Third Annual National Educational Conference for Shoppers held July 7-9 in Chicago.

Mystery shoppers are consumers who anonymously and objectively evaluate customer service, operations, merchandising, product quality and other elements of the customer experience…”

source: “75 Percent of Mystery Shoppers Say Customer Service Has Not Improved With the Addition of Summer Help” (Mystery Shopping Providers Association, Jul.19.2006) [press release]