How do you properly run a modern-day restaurant in a cost-effective and customer-friendly manner? There are many answers to this question, and many restaurant managers will give you their version. Rightfully so, because there are several challenges like customer service, public relations, staff, and inventory management, you need to overcome them. Hence, today, we will learn restaurant management tips that will put you on top of your competition and position your restaurant for success.
Irrespective of the kind of answer you may give, a reliable restaurant POS system is a vital component of a successful restaurant. This is one fact that many restaurant management tips forget to mention. The point of sale systems brings future solutions into the present difficulties of restaurant management. As such, rendering the tips so much more effective.
The following tips cover all the basics of managing a successful restaurant.
Effective Restaurant Management Tips
Running a successful restaurant is like perfectly fitting all the pieces of a giant puzzle together. The puzzle is incomplete if one piece is missing or not in the right place. Of course, you have to deal with the usual challenges of managing employees. But apart from this, there are perishable food items that need careful oversight to remain in good condition.
Hence, find below the restaurant management tips that ensure all the pieces of your restaurant business are running in perfect harmony.
Providing customer service
Some business rules never change. One such rule is, “The customer is always right.” You may disagree with the complaints a customer raises. However, you need to know how to deal with matters that arise when serving your customers professionally.
This determines if your restaurant will have a lot of returning visitors and if they will speak well of your services to others. Because like it or not, word does go around (more on this later). Your sole mission, as far as customers are concerned, is to ensure a positive, warm, and welcoming customer experience.
Here are some tips that can serve as a restaurant management guide for your customer service.
Promptly deal with customers’ complaints to ensure your guests feel heard.
Make sure every staff knows customer services are part of everyone’s job (from the cooks, counter server, to the baker).
Be a good listener and ask customers good questions, so you always know their expectations.
Do not make false promises. Instead, try and over-deliver on your promises.
Be humble and good at apologizing – when things go wrong, sincerely apologize to your guests. As an anonymous quote said, “Humility can calm anger faster than a refund.”
Teach and train employees to value excellent customer service – and this begins with treating your employees well.
These six tips should stir the customer service in the right direction provided they follow this restaurant management guide and implement the tips in your establishment.
Setting Job Expectations
Phil Jackson - "The strength of the team is each member. The strength of each member is the team."
This quote simplifies the potential of great teamwork in unleashing amazing results in every business setting. That is why each staff member you recruit for your restaurant can tremendously affect the overall performance of the entire team.
Therefore you set the right standards for your staff, with the kind of culture that promotes the goals and visions for your restaurant. This is perhaps one of the most important among all the restaurant management tips in this list. Because, as earlier stated, the strength of each member is in the team. Steve Jobs put it best when he said, “A players hire A+ players.”
Also, once you have all the right people in your staff, you need to keep them well motivated. You can do this in several ways.
Below are some of the ways of keeping your staff motivated.
Encourage your staff to speak up about their complaints.
Set realistic and achievable goals.
Provide incentives for staff members that distinguish themselves; like a raise, free meals, bonuses, and vacation days.
Promote employees that have earned their spot at a higher position.
Though you may be a restaurant manager, your work also extends into relationship management as far as your staff is concerned. Therefore, it is your responsibility to foster good teamwork among staff members. This way, great drinks, food, and customer service will keep flowing.
Marketing your Restaurant
Never underestimate the power of good word-of-mouth when it comes to advertising your restaurant. This is one of the few restaurant management tips that focus on the outward impression people get of your business. Everyone is business puts their best foot forward when presenting their products or services (or at least they try).
However, the way you are perceived and who you are can be quite different at times. This is why this restaurant management guide seeks to encourage restaurants to make a conscious effort to get the right word out there. There are different ways of doing this with several channels out there to engage your audience.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Getting a professional web design for a strong online presence.
Create and maintain a blog with constant fresh content.
Employ email marketing to get personal with customers.
Create social media accounts on the platforms most relevant to your customer base.
These four ways can go a long way to advertise your site. You can also get creative with how you use these and make your menu, photos, and promotions available through the internet. The best thing about this restaurant management guide is, it’s either free or costs next to nothing.
Monitoring your Cash Flow
The simple cash flow equation is cash coming in minus cash going out of your business. You cannot afford to ignore the direction of the ‘cash’ current at any point in time. Therefore, ensure you keep an eye on it on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. You will avoid several financial risks and pitfalls.
The best solution for this is a point-of-sale (POS) system. These systems are specially designed to help track cash flow, sales, and other vital restaurant details like food inventory.
The POS system has been called the restaurant manager’s best friend. Honestly, this list would have been way longer if not for the best POS systems for restaurants and retail businesses out there.
Hence, it is evident how they can simplify your life. You don’t have to worry about bookkeeping, preparing sales reports, and payroll management anymore. For restaurants shopping for a POS system, we recommend comparing several products and POS vendors. Then you make a final decision based on your evaluation of all the other products.
Other salient restaurant management tips include:
Using sales reports to expand and increase sales through intelligent business decisions.
Cutting down costs through smart choices like using energy-efficient lightbulbs and maximizing time usage.
Wrap Up
To effectively manage a restaurant, you need to be good at juggling a lot of responsibilities simultaneously. As such, you need all the help you can get. What is pretty evident from these restaurant management tips is that your customers and staff are perhaps the best help around. Also, a great restaurant POS system can answer a lot of questions for retail and restaurant managers. It can help both you and your staff save valuable time and money. But it only takes choosing the right one for your business. The success of any endeavor is usually a result of many factors. And remember “it takes two flints to make a fire.”
