The previous article discussed the power of personal recommendations as a painless way to build sales. Today we will look at the notion of guest delight. When it comes to service, everyone talks about the importance of making sure your guests are satisfied. Satisfaction is certainly better than dissatisfaction, but in today's market, satisfaction will not be enough to keep you growing and prospering over the long term. As the foodservice pie gets sliced into more and more pieces, it is important to go beyond satisfaction and become memorable in the eyes of your guests.
Diner delight is more important than good service because it has a different focus.
As you probably know, the problem with talking to your staff about good service is that it is too easy to define service from the perspective of the person providing it. What makes delight so powerful is that it cannot be defined from the server's point of view. Focusing on delight will force you to see everything that happens in the restaurant through your guests' eyes and that will keep you more in touch with their experience. Creating guest delight is great fun and the best servers make a game out of it. They can also tell the difference between honest praise and deceitful flattery.