Mahatma Gandhi, the famous Indian

leader, expressed his view of how important customers are,

very aptly: “A customer is the most important visitor on the

premises. They are not dependent on us, we are dependent

on them. They are not an interruption of our world, they are

the purpose of it. They are not an outsider to our business,

they are part of it. We are not doing them a favour by serving

them, they are doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity

to do so”. So why is it the general culture in our hospitality

industry to abandon our guests, rather than offering service

excellence? Is it ignorance or is it our culture?

Generally, the majority of operators focus all their energy and

attention on finding the perfect site; raising the significant

finance to create their vision, employing the services of

leading designers and architects, creating a stunning venue

with amazing furniture and an incredible sound system,

hosting some of the hottest DJs in town and then, at the very

last stage prior to opening, employing staff by availability

rather than by ability, and offering little or no training. This

happens time and time again. Why after investing such

considerable finance would you choose not to invest in

training your staff to offer service excellence to your guests?

Ultimately, it is your guests that will assist you in making

your venture financially rewarding. It is, therefore, good

business to train your staff.

One old argument constantly reiterated is that as we are in

the industry of transient staff, why waste money on training

them? Who makes it a transient employment market?

Perhaps ourselves, by choosing not to invest in people. I am

sure we have all heard many people say “ What if I train them

and they leave?”. Well, we would suggest “What if you don’t

and they stay”.

We constantly hear the industry talking about market

saturation and the fact that over the last ten years, there has

been an explosion in the number of new licences issued. We

hear them commenting on the fact that it is so competitive

out there and that discounting strategies and employing the

best DJs are amongst the only routes to success. Yet the

majority do not seem to see that service excellence could be

their unique selling point, and that maybe we do actually

need more bars, but ones that are offering service excellence.

What is service excellence? Without going into the physical

cycle of service, excellence is about doing ordinary things

extraordinarily well, it is about going beyond what is

expected. It is about adding value and integrity to every

interaction. It is about being at your best with every

customer. It is about discovering new ways to delight those

we serve. It is about taking care of the guest like you would

take care of your grandmother. By offering service excellence,

we expose ourselves to the opportunity of being rewarded

with very handsome gratuities. Many sceptics would say that

we have no tipping culture in the UK. Well, we have news for

you, we have. By offering service excellence, you will receive

gratuities and good ones, time and time again.

Picture this. It is a Saturday night, the bar is very busy. The

bartender has just made two fantastic cocktails, the guest has

just paid for them and left no gratuity and the bartender is

not happy. Why? Probably because he forgot to smile, he

forgot to acknowledge them when he was serving another

guest, he forgot to welcome them to the bar, he forgot to

embark on some dialogue with his guests, he made the

drinks, but he took ten minutes to do so, he got chatting to

his colleagues, holding back his guests from enjoying

themselves, and finally the icing on the cake, he forgot to

thank them.

Making great drinks is not enough. Your guests are there to

be wowed. It may sound a simple process to look after a

guest, but how many times have you experienced exactly that

kind of service? We would suggest many times, and that is

the failure to deliver just basic courteous service, not

excellence. Conversely, how many times have you been

wowed? Perhaps your server did something extraordinary to

enhance your experience; perhaps they did something to take

your experience beyond your expectation or perhaps they just

simply delighted you. Unfortunately, not often enough.

We are constantly being told of how many guests hear about

one bad experience in a bar. Consider the chain reaction of

discussion between friends, colleagues and associates about

that bad experience. If you only give one bad experience each

day, then consider how that multiplies up over a year. That is

not good publicity, not good practice and certainly not good

business. So, can you afford not to invest in training your

employees on how to deliver service excellence?

Thankfully, we are gradually seeing more and more

operators sharing this viewpoint, and investing in their

people and ultimately their guests. We are seeing a new wave

of companies offering training and consultancy services to

the hospitality industry. Jointly they share this vision, that in

order to guarantee success in business, investment has to be

made in training service excellence.

One day, service excellence may be universal rather than just

a vision. Perhaps, one day, we will all realise, we are in a very

privileged position to be given the opportunity by our guests,

to serve them. We certainly hope so.

Peter Dundas andRonnie Gamble

of Luscious Liquidsee servicestandards

slipping

Excellence not Abandonment

Luscious Liquid offer a wide

range of training and consultancy

services to the hospitality industry

and they believe passionately in

encouraging and assisting this

industry to offer service

excellence to their guests

consistently.

Luscious Liquid

tel: 0141-552-8778

email:info@lusciousliquid.co.uk

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