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| Waiter Training Newsletter |
Books & Manuals Restaurant Training Manuals Training Book for Waiters & Waitresses
A Message for Wait Staff
This newsletter is directed mostly at wait staff. If you are a manager or owner, I encourage you to share this with your staff. If nothing else, it will start a conversation between you and your staff.
My last newsletter really focused on management treating wait staff like real employees, instead of expendable fringe staff. This newsletter is really focused on wait staff not allowing themselves to be treated as such. Yes, it’s up to you to make sure you’re treated with the respect you deserve. That means you have to earn that respect and maintain it with even, consistent work habits.
It all starts with how you present yourself at your first interview. First impressions are difficult to back over and change. It’s like pushing a rope uphill; it won’t go! Dress as if you’re going to an office job interview. Wear a suit or something equally nice. Assuming that it’s ok to show up in your trendy jeans and half shirt because you’ll be wearing khakis and polos is a huge mistake. Managers want to see that you care about your appearance and that you’re clean. After all, you’ll be handling food that goes to the public for consumption; you’d better be clean!
Next, bring in a complete, up-to-date resumé. Some restaurants won’t require you to fill out an entire application form if they have your resume to look at, which can have more information than an application. Bottom line, it just makes you appear more professional and detail-oriented if you have a resumé, even if there’s not a lot on it.
Those first two tasks have shown two things about you: you care about yourself and you take your career seriously – you aren’t one to be treated as a fringe employee.
When you have the job, remember that there are expectations of you to perform your duties with little or no supervision. That doesn’t just mean that you can set the tables after being shown once how they are to be set. That also means you can do your work with minimal chatting with your co-workers. Conversation is fine. It’s bad business for your customers to overhear your personal conversations while they wait to be waited on. It also means you are able to leave your baggage at the door when you come into work. You may have just had a flat tire on your way to work and your girlfriend just broke up with you last night; the show must go on! Your customers have their own problems and agendas; they aren’t paying you to dump your problems or the soup in their laps.
Translation of the last paragraph: be a professional. When you go to your doctor’s or dentist’s office, you probably never hear their personal problems creeping into the examination room before he/she enters to serve you. You pay far too much money for them to be unloading their lives on your lap. Your customers feel the same way about your restaurant. They are paying too much money, not including the tip, to hear about their server’s bad day or life.
Take ownership! Understand that you are an independent salesperson for your restaurant. Know the menu like the back of your hand. Know how the chef cooks the food. Go the extra mile and walk someone to the pay phone. When a customer asks where the nearest newspaper stand is, run out and buy the newspaper for your customer! These things seem so small, yet they can be huge to your customers. No one likes to wander around a restaurant looking lost and confused. The bathroom or the pay phone is easy for you to find because you work there! Your customer may have never been there.
Continuing your professional image includes always being on time or even a little early to do some extra side work or just take more time doing the side work assigned to you. Consider side work as down time. All successful salespeople take time for preparation; your job shouldn’t be any different. You’ll be making great money when the doors open and your extra care with side work will help you take better care of your customers.
We all hear this next item all the time and the reason we hear it all the time is because it’s true! Your appearance! Shower and wear appropriate deodorants. Your hair should be clean and neatly pulled back, not loose and able to fall into food. Make sure your uniform is clean, pressed and complete. Complete means you have all the necessary tools to perform your job: wine key, pens and paper on which to write orders. You wouldn’t want your doctor to give you an exam or tend to your aches and pains with blood and other matter on his/her clothes from a previous patient. We all expect our doctors and nurses to project a clean, pressed image; your customers expect the same from you!
Speak clearly and loud enough so that everyone can hear and understand you. Nothing is worse than a mumbling server, except maybe a mumbling and clumsy server! Practice with tongue twisters on your way to work to warm up your voice and your lips. Basically, you’re a professional speaker! Treat your body well and take care of your vocal cords!
Which brings me to the next part of being a professional: taking care of your body and your health. Drink plenty of water and get enough sleep. Save your partying for your days off! I know it sounds like I’m telling you how to live your life – I’m not! I’m telling you what will help you be a professional and make more money! A positive attitude starts with basic good health.
Expect to be treated like a professional by acting like one. This is your life and your career. Take control of it! Be proud of what and who you are and others will be, too! They’ll treat you like the professional that you are!
Just remember, the image you project is the person your customers will see.
Training and information is the key! Contact me, Susie, at Waiter Training, either by phone or email. My business number is (720) 203-4615, and web address is http://www.waiter-training.com.
I have restaurant training manuals available for sale, as well as my book, “A Waiter’s Training,” for the individual server who wants to learn more about his/her career and improve on skills.
Susie Ross has been involved in the hospitality industry for ten years
. She has just written a definitive work on front of house customer service and techniques for waiters and waitresses. For more information about Susie's book, "A Waiters Training," her training manuals and training seminars please visit her at http://www.waiter-training.com or email her at susie@waiter-training.com.©Waiter Training 2003
Excellence is an act won by training and habituation.
We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have those because we have acted rightly.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.- Aristotle
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