Case StudiesThe Difficult Guest

By Michele Eby

It's Friday. The long week's over... After waiting for your spouse and fighting traffic, you're seated at your favorite restaurant, trying to relax, looking at a menu 25 minutes later than you had planned. You wonder if you'll make the movie on time. You look at your watch again. You're feeling impatient. And hungry. And agitated. Sure, it's your fault you're running late. But, you're the guest after all.

Now, let's change perspectives for a moment.

It's a busier than usual Friday night. Almost every table is full. You approach a couple who has just been seated. They return your smile with a bit of a scowl along with a terse comment about their movie starting in 45 minutes and they haven't even ordered yet. Sound familiar?

In the restaurant industry, guests have high expectations. Add hunger to those expectations and guests can become difficult quickly. Fired Up, Inc., which owns Johnny Carino's Country Italian restaurants, understands how important it is that employees know how to handle those challenging guest interactions.

That's why Fired Up, Inc. selected Media Partners' The Difficult Guest, a training program Kathy Harris, vice president of training, believes "really drives home the point about being guest-focused."

"THE DIFFICULT GUEST" LINKS CLOSELY TO RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

"That's why we picked The Difficult Guest. It really links closely to the restaurant industry." Harris said.

"It's entertaining - something our younger
generation of employees needs. It makes
an emotional connection with them,
and that's what we want."

Fired Up, Inc. believes that comprehensive guest-focused training is an important part of building guest loyalty. Training employees and managers on how to deal with challenging, unhappy, and frustrated guests can mean the difference between losing a guest and gaining one for life.

"At the end of the day, we increase our guest loyalty when they transfer what they've learned from The Difficult Guest to a guest interaction they're experiencing," said Harris. "That's what it's all about."

COMPANIES UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF GUEST LOYALTY

In our competitive marketplace, more and more companies understand the importance of guest loyalty. For the last decade the idea that one guest will tell between 8 and 10 other people of a poor service experience has become widely accepted among restaurants and other service providers. In the last few years, however, some researchers put that number at 12. And, many agree that a dissatisfied guest may never complain and, worse, may never return.

Restaurants, in particular, rely on repeat business. To lose one guest party of two per week, at an average check of $30 and one visit a month, amounts to an annual loss of more than $18,000, at one location. Multiply that figure by the number of restaurants in a multi-restaurant chain and the numbers quickly become staggering. And, that doesn't take into consideration the impact on the 8 - 12 people each of those guests may have told about their poor dining experience.

FIRED UP BELIEVES TRAINING IS DRIVING GUEST LOYALTY

Is it working? Harris said that even though they just began the rollout a couple of months ago, she believes they are already seeing results. The guest satisfaction reports are increasingly positive and employees and managers are responding favorably to the training.

The Difficult Guest illustrates the three primary reasons guests can be difficult; they may be distracted, disappointed or disruptive, and presents a simple and straightforward plan for dealing with them. It outlines how to make a guest relationship L.A.S.T. (Listen, Apologize, Solve, and Thank) and does so in a hilarious way. Some of the guest scenarios are set in restaurants and other hospitality venues.

MEDIA PARTNERS - IN TOUCH WITH BUSINESS AND TRAINING NEEDS

"Every time Media Partners comes out with a
program it feels like they're paying attention
to my company and our needs. They really
keep their finger on the pulse of
training development needs."

Harris said the company plans to share Keeping the Good Ones at an upcoming general managers conference. "It's great too," she said, adding that "even our Chief Operating Officer said he learned something from it."

Keeping the Good Ones is an employee retention film, but it's also about leadership, and about managing people instead of employees. It tells the story of a regular, hard-working hotel manager who doesn't have time for employees or their issues. As the story unfolds, viewers learn that keeping good employees comes down to regularly connecting with each team member.

As Fired Up, Inc. continues its company-wide implementation of The Difficult Guest and gets ready to present Keeping the Good Ones to its management team, Harris said she is looking forward to The Leadership Pickle, a future Media Partners release.

...go to THE DIFFICULT GUEST VIDEO product page

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