Have you pulled up to the gas pump lately and thought about how cheap gas is? If so,
that’s called conditioning. We’ve been conditioned over the last few months by the high
gas prices that $2 per gallon is cheap. I’m sure the oil companies hope it stays there, and
they’ve conditioned us to accept it.

Look inside your restaurant. Have you conditioned your customers to accept mediocre
food, service, or cook times? Are your employees conditioned knowing you accept the
lowest standards possible and they can come in late, out of uniform, and be unproductive?
It’s never too late to re-condition the team. It’s not so important where you are today, but
rather what you are doing about it.

Get a jump on New Year’s Resolutions and take the month of December to re-focus on
recipes, procedures, cook times, and cleanliness in the back of the house. Make a
commitment to uniform standards and attendance policies. Ask the staff for input on how
to make your restaurant a better place to work–perhaps being a better boss is a good place
to start. Out front, work on hospitality when greeting and thanking the customer vs.
putting them through a process. Get the team to suggestive sell and move those new gift
cards or gift certificates during the holidays.

For you personally, condition yourself to say more positive comments than negative ones
(4-to-1 is a good ratio), train something new each day, hold interactive pre-shift meetings,
role play with your staff, and have a contest-a-day to bring some fun back into the work
environment. Making your restaurant great starts with you. If you can’t or won’t re-condition yourself, the staff certainly won’t.

Remember, gas for $2 per gallon is not cheapwe’re just conditioned to believe it is.
Want your staff to be excellent? Condition them to believe that as well!

T.J. Schier is service professional, consultant and speaker with over 20 years experience in operations and training. Founder and president of Incentivize Solutions and podTraining, T.J. has helped numerous clients enhance their service and training programs and spoken to tens of thousands of managers, franchisees and operators in various fields. Visit http://IncentivizeSolutions.com/ for more info motivating today’s employees, training today’s generation and delivering outstanding guest service; or http://podTraining.us/, a unique new system and the foundation of ‘i-learning’ - using the device of today’s generation, the iPod - to train your workforce.

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Disney imagineer John Hench was quoted in a book on guest service as saying, “What’s
our success formula? It’s attention to infinite detail, the little things, the little, minor, picky
points that others just don’t want to take the time, money, or effort to do.”

Attention to infinite detail, the little things that others don’t want to do. Hmmm

If you think those things don’t add up to much, consider these “minor” points:

Add a space to the word extraordinary and it becomes extra ordinary. I think most of us
would rather eliminate the space and provide extraordinary servicewhich would lead to
extraordinary amounts of money.

Vijay Singh, professional golfer, was .9 shots per round (yes, less than 1 shot a day)
better than #10 golfer Stewart Cink. Vijay took home over $10 million while Cink took
home only $4.4 million.
And finally,

In 2003, Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France by 61 secondsa “comfortable”
margin. However, over the span of the 2,082 mile race, he averaged only .03 seconds per
mile better than the second-place finisher. Only three one-hundredths of a second per mile
was the difference between fame and the “first-loser”.

So, the next time you feel happy about suggestive selling to 50 percent of the guests or
your order times in the kitchen or drive-thru start creeping up, think about the exponential
impact it has on your productivity, sales, and profits.

Back when I had a “real” job as VP of Field Support for Chuck E Cheese’s Pizza, one of
the people I worked with called me a “bottomless pit of wants and needs” as it seemed
there was always something more we tried to get out of folks.

Since most of us would rather be remembered as Lance Armstrong versus somebody we
can’t remember (e.g. the second-place finisher), take the time to make the extra effort to
get that extra few seconds. Make that additional investment or step to excellence that your
competitor is too lazy or too cheap to take. After all, Lance Armstrong told his young son
when asked what his job was, “My job is to make the competition suffer.” Focus on the
minor points, the infinite detail, the little things, and make the competition suffer!

T.J. Schier is service professional, consultant and speaker with over 20 years experience in operations and training. Founder and president of Incentivize Solutions and podTraining, T.J. has helped numerous clients enhance their service and training programs and spoken to tens of thousands of managers, franchisees and operators in various fields. Visit http://IncentivizeSolutions.com/ for more info motivating today’s employees, training today’s generation and delivering outstanding guest service; or http://podTraining.us/, a unique new system and the foundation of ‘i-learning’ - using the device of today’s generation, the iPod - to train your workforce.

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One of the competitive advantages quick-serves have long enjoyed is customer
convenience due to the shorter cook times and the ability for the customer to pick up their
food in a drive-thru or drive-in. That’s no longer the case. I recently passed a full-service
restaurant that had a drive-thru for call-ahead and pickup orders. While it might sound
crazy, it’s not that far-fetched. With so many full-service restaurants offering to-go and
curbside pickup, drive-thrus are not far behind for them. Either way, the advantage you
once had is shrinking.

Additionally, at many restaurants you can order online or talk to a call center that handles
the to-go calls. Having run a large call center/web booking service for a family
entertainment chain, I’ve seen the benefits of professional sales staff not only improve
sales, but also the quality of the phone experience for the customer.

How can your customers order from you today? Dine-in and wait in line. Drive-thru and
talk to a speaker box. Phone ahead? Not in too many places. Fax it in and hope someone
sees the fax so the food is ready when you arrive. Not too many good options. Expensive?
It might seem to be, but it’s similar to credit card acceptance — if it brings in incremental
business, the investment is worth it.

By making it easier for the customer to order and pick up their food, what happens?

Dine-in. Phone stops ringing but the cash register doesn’t. Put in an express line or
entrance with a dedicated POS terminal (or a wireless payment device) to get these folks
through quickly.

Drive-thru. Think about wireless payment acceptance in the drive-thru line. Not only
does it help these customers, but you can help bust the line during peak times by taking
orders and accepting credit/debit payments to speed up at-the-window times.

Order sizes get larger. Allowing the customer to pre-order (and pre-pay) will increase the
size of your average order. All of a sudden one customer can now come in and pick up the
order for the entire office, without the need to pay for each one individually and slow the
time down.

Customer base expands. You can now target companies in your local trade area to
promote an even faster level of service, since the customers can pre-order and pre-pay.
Cha-ching! A new market for you to reach.

Do you feel threatened or challenged? Develop the systems to crush the competition and
expand your sales into new areas by rising to the occasion!

T.J. Schier is service professional, consultant and speaker with over 20 years experience in operations and training. Founder and president of Incentivize Solutions and podTraining, T.J. has helped numerous clients enhance their service and training programs and spoken to tens of thousands of managers, franchisees and operators in various fields. Visit http://IncentivizeSolutions.com/ for more info motivating today’s employees, training today’s generation and delivering outstanding guest service; or http://podTraining.us/, a unique new system and the foundation of ‘i-learning’ - using the device of today’s generation, the iPod - to train your workforce.

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