CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS – COMPANION

SITE

Welcome to the companion website for the Customer Service Skills CD ROM. This will
guide you through all you need to get the very most out of the package, as
well as providing additional information, and suggestions for applying the
contents of the CD.

The site is divided into sections: click on the links below to access the relevant one.

Or alternatively download a complete user guide in Word format.

 Introduction
 Getting started
 Utilising the role plays:
 Points for discussion:
 Selection attributes for enlightened hotel and restaurant personnel
 Guest relations problems
 Responding to client concerns
 If a guest does complain ...
 Suggestive selling
Introduction

T
he CD Rom has evolved from innovatory work carried out The Scottish Hotel
School of The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. The content of this CD Rom
was designed specifically for use in the School. However, because of the project’s
potential in stimulating student/tutor thinking when used in conjunction with wider
teaching programmes, the CD Rom has a distinct capacity to complement such
training/learning.

A creative team at AV Media Services (a central service department of the University

of Strathclyde) designed and produced this CD Rom with Mr Cailein Hugh
Gillespie from The Scottish Hotel School. The core team comprised Designer/Producer,
Caroline Moody, and Academic Advisor, Cailein Hugh Gillespie. The assets were created
by 12 creative specialists and Roseanne Strachan, the Graphics/Photography Manager,
who managed the project.

___________________________________
Getting started
 After inserting the CD into the CD drive of your computer, the CD will auto mount
and the software will start automatically.

 Click on ‘Click here to enter’ on the title screen that appears.

 The following screen will appear:

The role plays are divided into three types – Businessman and Associate, Single Tourist
and Child and Father.

For each of these, you can select good and bad examples of the following:

 Marketing and Public Relations

 Suggestive Selling
 Guest Relations
 Responding to Client Concerns
 Reading the Guest
 Building Rapport

You can also select Auditor, which provides a Quality Standards Analysis report for a
fine dining restaurant.
Click on the relevant option to begin.

Next section: Utilising the role plays

Utilising the role plays

 The nature of the role plays

 Basic level
 Intermediate level
 Advanced level
 Quality standards analysis

The nature of the role plays

The role-playing scenes are split into three distinctive groupings:

 Businessman and Associate

 Single Tourist
 Child and Father

Each requires very different handling and delivery of hospitality. Individuals are asked to
look beyond the CD Rom and make use of the broad range of skills identified in their
own business or training.

The scenes you will view are enacted by postgraduate diploma/MSc students of The
Scottish Hotel School. Click on each group and select examples of ‘good and bad’
communication. Each of the three role plays deals with aspects of the following:

 Marketing and Public Relations

 Suggestive Selling
 Guest Relations
 Responding to Client Concerns
 Reading the Guest
 Building Rapport

Individuals are asked to look beyond the CD Rom and to make use of the broad range of
skills identified in their own businesses.

Basic level:
Play the role plays through in each section, grasping what is happening during the
interactions. Listen to the supporting audio at the end of each interaction and analyse
what you would do in each case to improve your interaction with, and understanding of,
your customers and your work colleagues.

Intermediate level:

Replay the scenes that you watched before, but this time analyse them in greater detail.
Look at the actions and reactions of the guests. Observe the actions and reactions of the
staff and management in the role plays. Listen more carefully to the audio sections, and
ask questions about each element. Consider the personnel selection attributes for food
service. Answers could include some of the following:

Articulate Memory skills

Creative Motivation
Customer oriented approach Numerate
Decisive Positive attitude
Energy Positive personality
Enthusiasm Rational intelligence
Friendly Smile
Good listener Varied and interesting background
Kind and compassionate Warmth
Language skills Willingness to take initiative

Advanced level:

You could now superimpose what you have learned in the previous viewing with your
own performance and those of your colleagues. Relate the role plays to your own
business – is there room for improvement and for remedial work on your food service
skills? At whatever level you operate, could you honestly state that your service quality
meets and exceeds the most stringent of international customer needs?

High quality service is paramount to the success of any food and beverage service
establishment. Many businesses offer bad or inconsistent and in many ways, indifferent
service.

Have you ever received poor and inattentive service? Do you look closely at the service
you receive when dining out? Are you able to clearly articulate what has gone wrong and
intricately analyse the complex concept that defines high quality service?

Have you ever truthfully analysed what it is you should be attempting to achieve in
offering the highest quality service to your guests? Ask yourself the following:

- Do you view all of your guests in the same way?

 - Do they effectively form themselves systematically into ‘good’ and ‘bad’
categories of guests?
- If they do follow the model identified above, have you effectively analysed
yourself and your guests efficiently?
- Do you really care about your guests’ specific needs and requirements?
- Do you find that your guests have various needs to be met?
- Itemise a range of these needs.

There is much more that can be achieved by looking in detail at the role plays. The role
plays have not been sanitised and even in the ‘good’ role plays you may be able to view
for example a name badge at a jaunty angle or slight hesitation in communication. These
were programmed into the project and should be picked up by vigilant viewers. Needless
to say in the bad role plays you will be able to identify with many of the scenes shown
from past exposure to poor performance in service situations.
Quality standards analysis:

The fourth element looks at the work of a quality standards analyst employed to provide
an audit of a pre-lunch or dinner beverages report and an audit of a fine dining restaurant.
This individual can be viewed in the background in some of the role plays. In virtually
all cases you would not be able to identify this individual easily. We have portrayed this
individual writing - in many cases they would use much more subtle means of recording
their findings.

Quality standards analysts and mystery shoppers are commissioned to patronise hotels,
restaurants, bars, conference venues, exhibitions centres, launches, theatres, banquets or
other events and businesses with the sole purpose of exhaustibly observing that business
or operation or a specific aspect or segment of the operation. Resulting from the period
of observation a detailed report is forwarded to the commissioning business or agent.
The management of the operation obtains an unbiased report on its business or specifics
of its operation and can resultantly take corrective steps to amend any problems, reward
specific staff, assess future training needs etc.

Reports become the property of the commissioning business or agent. All materials in
the reports or stemming from the production or gathering of reports are strictly private
and confidential.

Quality standards analysts should have a minimum of twenty years’ experience in the
hotel and hospitality industry and have in-depth knowledge of interpersonal skills,
communication and selling skills. They must have a deep knowledge of classical cuisine
and contemporary international cuisines, wines, spirits and a whole range of other
beverages. They should possess excellent memory and observational skills in all areas of
hotel/hospitality operations. All analysts should also have operated at a minimum
standard of four-star hotels. Mystery shoppers tend to be amateur but the businesses
behind them are not. Mystery shoppers tend to follow a checklist of data, which is
completed and returned to the company who employed them. That company then
forwards the completed material to the business.

Clients generally discuss the specifics of visits well in advance so that when on site they
will have no contact with the client or management, which might alert staff to the nature
of the visit. This also frees valuable time for the analyst to follow the pre-prepared remit,
which is often based on a roving commission. Reports have increased value if they are
more organic than statistical and provide in-depth information. Roving commissions can
lead to submission of a comprehensive report which will include pre-visit material on
telephone technique, faxed and mailed information from the property. Clients can
generally expect to have the full report three days after the analysis concludes. QSA and
mystery shoppers provide the clients with a diagnostic tool and standards are assessed on
the basis of the client being in the international marketplace.

Next section: Points for discussion

Points for discussion

 Marketing and Public Relations Role Plays

 Suggestive Selling Role Plays
 Guest Relations Role Plays
 Response to Client Concerns Role Plays
 Reading the Guest Role Plays
 Building Rapport Role Plays

Good Marketing and Public Relations Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

In a quality restaurant the menu should be one of your principal communications, sales
and public relations tools. Suggesting your own favourite dishes opens up a
communications freeway.

Single Tourist

Having one or more members of staff who can open communications and build links with
guests can have economic benefits to the business.

Think about how economic benefits might be demonstrated.

Child and Father

Issues of guest relations, strong verbal and non-verbal communication, building rapport,
communication with an infant, and the confirming of a safe environment have been
demonstrated here.

Think how you might improve your communication with children in a restaurant setting.

Consider what might constitute a safe environment.

Bad Marketing and Public Relations Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

It is essential that all service personnel are familiar with all aspects of the food and
beverages on offer. Failures reflect negatively on the business.
Single Tourist

Guests suffering this kind of humiliation will never return. Situations like this are
completely avoidable and will lead to negative publicity.

Child and Father

This is a minor error that the father has picked up on. Think how you might best retrieve
the situation.

Good Suggestive Selling Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

The server clearly demonstrates knowledge of the wine list, food and beverage
combining and the ability to up-sell.

Examine the basic skills you need for suggestive selling and up-selling.

Think how you might up-sell to increase beverage sales.

Single Tourist

Staff should not be afraid to flag up the difference between you and your competitors. By
reading the guest opportunities may arise to increase revenue.

A chance to confirm the guest’s good taste should never be missed. Listen for responses
that will assist you in guiding your guest and try to avoid questions which lead to a yes or
no answer. Practise this and it will build your confidence and improve revenue.

Child and Father

Parents or accompanying adults need to be the primary influence in children’s welfare.

However, children still need to be given options. When communicating with the young
child you need to direct your communication to their needs. Whereas, older children
should be treated in a similar way to adults.

Even though we are not geared to accommodate children on a regular basis, consider how
you might make them feel comfortable and reflect ways in which you need to adapt for
serving children of different ages.
Bad Suggestive Selling Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

This demonstrates bad manners on the part of the waitress, who missed the
communication directed at Mr Congreve’s associate.

Could you retrieve this situation to effect positive change?

Single Tourist

Service staff should avoid communications which give a yes or no response.

Child and Father

Reflect on how you might effect change to show both you and your establishment in a
more positive manner.

Good Guest Relations Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

There are differences in the way you would treat business guests, a family or a single
guest. Reflect on what these might be.

Single Tourist

Our goal is to create relevant, memorable images, helping us to inform, sell and
communicate. We wish our clients to become an important part of a lasting relationship,
which can flourish through care and commitment.

Consider which key staff members might focus in on guest relations.

Imagine how you might improve the guest relations and build rapport.
Child and Father

Young and slightly older children should be served first as they become agitated if they
are left waiting whilst others are served first.

Bad Guest Relations Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

All booked guests must be recognised by name. You might like to look at the examples
of good guest relations.

Listen to the change in Mr Congreve’s tone, as he has to repeat his name in front of his
guest. Listen also to the way he says thank you at the close of the sequence of
communication.

Single Tourist

Good service personnel must be continuously alert in order to respond immediately to

customer requests.

Child and Father

Young and slightly older children should be served first as they become quickly agitated
if others are being served.

Look at the father’s facial expression in the role play scene: he is obviously not amused at
his son not being served first.

Good Responding to Client Concerns Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

The restaurant manager must be an ‘ambassador’ for his/her organisation. Here, our
restaurant manager uses the customer name, and he is willing to assist with any special
needs.

The positive tone is confirming, and Mr Congreve can now relax in the knowledge that
he is being well looked after.

Ask yourself how else the restaurant manager might have done this.
Single Tourist

The waiter adopts a genuinely positive and friendly manner. He makes suggestions,
which are not hesitant, and builds customer confidence.

How would you have responded, would you know what to offer guests with a range of
dietary regimes, ethical, personal, religious and medical? Do you know where to obtain
further knowledge on this subject?

Father and Child

We have very few young diners, but we accommodate them the best we can.

Compare how a child-friendly restaurant differs from ours.

Bad Responses to Client Concerns Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

The comment made by the restaurant manager was unnecessary and ungracious. He
should have, at a minimum, stated that he would try to provide the meal in the guests’
allotted time.

Single Tourist

Consider the guests and your own reaction to a similar situation.

Father and Child

Many families hesitate when choosing to dine in a fine dining restaurant. Positive,
enthusiastic responses from service personnel can lead to valuable guest loyalty and
revenue generation. Careful consideration needs to be adopted when dressing the room.

Good Reading the Guest Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

Non-verbal communications such as body language, gestures, facial expressions and even
eye movements focus on the present and are loaded with rich meaning. Successful
decoding of non-verbal communication will enrich your understanding of the guest.

This waiter has provided a creative, skilled and motivated response to reading the guest.

Father and Child

Service needs to be adapted when dealing with children. Think why the waitress has
removed the stemmed glasses. Consider other child-friendly issues in terms of safety and
food service.

Bad Reading the Guest Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

In all interaction with business guests, interventions should be well timed and discreet.
The waitress has misread the communication and need not have interrupted when
replenishing their wine.

The auditor, who is acting as a quality standards analyst, is monitoring this bad practice
and will relay the information to the pertinent bodies for corrective training.

Single Tourist

This is both bad communication and a missed opportunity.

Think how your communication might differ to show the facility and its products in a
positive light.

Father and Child

A self-explanatory sketch displaying the need for service personnel to be constantly

vigilant.
Good Building Rapport Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

Good restaurant managers can build upon existing relationships through careful listing
and close liaison. This can lead to successful revenue generation.

Single Tourist

The customer’s needs have been met. Think how you might expand this interaction.

Father and Child

Here, entertaining the small child will give his father a chance to focus in on the
enjoyment of his meal.

Bad Building Rapport Role Plays

Businessman and Associate

All of your commitments to customers must be fulfilled. Verbal and written

communications, where we build our customers’ aspirations, must be met.

Single Tourist

We must always endeavour to meet the customer’s needs. It is appropriate to imagine

yourself in the customer’s position and ponder how you would feel in a similar situation.

Father and Child

By listening carefully to what is being said you can build rapport and show yourself and
your business in a more positive light.

Excellent service is essential for the success of a fine dining restaurant.

Next section: Selection attributes
Selection attributes for enlightened hotel and restaurant personnel

What hotel and restaurant guests purchase in their careful selection of property and
product act as signifiers demonstrating to others and themselves what kind of people they
are. This can be discerned as a sign of an individual’s sensitivity, a kind of self-portrait.

By choice they enter a world where they adopt and are imbued with the perceived values
of the hotel or restaurant. Human communication depends on the symbolism of language
and the language of fashion, and design in luxury hotels and restaurants provides a rich
weave of symbolic character carriers.

Guests are provided with rich worlds of experience bound up with personal status
symbols, and many properties have become theatres of life characterised by escapism and
fantasy (this can be seen in the many designer, art, boutique and specialist hotels and in
destination, themed and fashionable restaurants). In all of these properties design
becomes an identification signal informing members of the international elite that they
have come to the right place, but it is also an emotional marketing tool.

Name a selection of hotels and restaurants within each area identified above and get to
know what makes them special and how they operate. All luxury hotels and fine dining
restaurants offer high levels of personal interaction. They have high capital value. They
operate at the top end of quality service and profits stem from them. They also determine
how successful you are in your business life cycle. What criteria allow one hotel or
restaurant to charge more for the experience than another? You need to be ever alert to
customer needs; you need close contact with customers and to operate within an
environment which can adapt to change immediately. Today we are operating in an
experience economy. It’s about memorable experience: no one dines in a luxury hotel or
restaurant simply because they are hungry. It’s not about meeting minimum standards,
it’s about exceeding them. What we are selling is distinction and image; we sell
experiences and harmonised impressions. In all of this our staff training is fundamental
and at all times we are only as good as our weakest link and that link is your front-line
personnel.

All of our top hotels and fine dining restaurants have moved from a service economy to
an experience economy. There are more diverse products, services and facilities.
Management has to be strategic, the pace setters, ensuring quality standards and delivery
are maintained. Professionalism is central to operating the business. The customer is
essential – profit comes from satisfied customers. Simply smiling, saying the right things
and being enthusiastic are no longer enough. We need to connect with each customer’s
individual requirements and this has to have an emotional connectivity for success.
Where there is a lack of emotional connectivity customers perceive or contact personnel
to be cold, clinical, indifferent, disinterested, impersonal and mechanistic.

Suggested reading:
Barlow, J. and Maul, D. – Emotional Value: creating strong bonds with your customer
(BK Publishers, San Francisco, 2000)
Freemantle, D. – What Customers Like About You: adding emotional value (Nicholas
Brealey, London, 1998)
Gillespie, C. – European Gastrony into the 21st Century (Butterworth-Heinemann,
Oxford, 2001)

Next section: Guest relations problems

Guest relations problems

Management and contact staff are responsible for reducing guest relations problems. All
personnel must be concerned with guest satisfaction. The food and beverage experience
is a complex one, requiring a holistic approach to be adopted.

Every member of your contact staff must be able to recognise the symptoms of even the
slightest deterioration in guest relations, and take immediate action to minimise its cause.

Symptoms of guest relations problems:

 little or no enthusiasm
 little or no staff morale
 ineffective management
 arguments between contact personnel
 management’s poor identification/analysis of contact staff training needs
 poor induction training
 high staff turnover
 no performance standards manual
 staff making continual minor service gaffs
 shortages of equipment
 breakages
 increasing complaints from guests about service
 increasing complaints about the product.

Next section: Responding to client concerns

Responding to client concerns

We should all endeavour to respond to client concerns. Failure to detect guest concerns
can lead to dissatisfaction and complaint. Never become complacent, thinking you have
seen everything before. You should constantly be redefining and learning how to work
with your guests and expand their enjoyment. Too many businesses have a mechanistic
approach to the guest. Guests should be treated as if you are entertaining them in your
own home.

Positive responses:

 contact personnel should be attentive to signs of concern and dissatisfaction

 contact staff should read guest body language. All require one’s attention in specific
ways: for example, a guest looking quizzically at the menu/wine/beverage list or
other collateral, a guest looking around the room trying to catch staff attention, or a
guest not completing their course or beverage etc.
 contact personnel require positive attitude, you need to use positive communication.
Do not over-react or inflame situations by stating, for example, ‘is there a problem?’,
or ‘do you have a complaint to make?’, when a guest has quizzed something.
 it’s better to enquire ‘may I be of assistance’. If the guest’s name is known to you, use
it.
 make every effort to avoid guest complaints.

It’s helpful for us to appreciate that some of our business guests and their associates may
be handling highly stressful business and personal circumstances.

Customers must feel confident enough to stress their concerns and feel able to raise a
complaint if they feel it necessary. This gives you the opportunity to put things right, in
person, and will back and even strengthen the relationship with the guest and the
business. The majority of customers will not voice their concern or wish to complain;
instead they will usually choose never to return.

Next section: If a guest does complain …

 If a guest does complain . . .

 let the guest speak, do not interrupt

 apologise for the specific problem or complaint
 restate the complaint to show you understand it fully
 ensure that the guest is made aware that he or she was correct in bringing the matter
to your attention
 act quickly, quietly and professionally. Never lose your temper, argue with the guest
or raise your voice
 do no take the complaint personally
 use this as an opportunity to improve.

With this in mind, imagine how you would follow the procedure through to a positive
result.

Next section: Suggestive selling

Suggestive selling

Suggestive selling employs team or personal selling techniques which are used to
contribute to the promotion of sales. Selling should be persuasive and staff should
recommend, but never force sales. Some people prefer to think of suggestive selling as
being the preserve of special promotions. Guests should be encouraged to use the
facilities on offer.

Positive suggestive selling

 know the product you are selling in great detail

 know the range of facilities available
 ascertain the guest’s real needs
 recommend items in accordance with the guest’s needs
 point out qualities of the product that will interest the guest
 give assistance by offering product options
 know daily specials and be able to describe them and their cooking method
 know all other outlets, their operating times and any special features
 know who other key members of the sales team are and be able to communicate
effectively with them
 do not ask questions that will end in a yes or no response
 avoid using negative terms and phrases
 be knowledgeable about your location and surrounding area, the various forms of
entertainment, places of interest and best mode of transport - i.e. nearest train station,
nearest airport, bus station, best shopping area and the best route to all of the above,
and the distance and best mode of transport if necessary.

Above all maintain the guest’s interest, offer choices such as, ‘fresh this morning’, low
calories, wine to complement the food.