The days of an owner coming into the restaurant for an hour or so, pulling out the cash and then leaving, have gone the way of the dinosaur. Total involvement by the franchise owner is essential to success.
To survive and succeed today, we must place an incredibly strong emphasis on our front line staff. It’s these front line people who can make or break your business based on their quality and level of knowledge and friendly, efficient service. We must place an even stronger emphasis on the startup training and continuous training of our front line people. This task should not be left up to an existing counter sales person alone. The owner must take an active role in this process – after all, it’s your business to make or break.
An example of how to do business successfully today is, naturally, hire and train responsible sales staff. Give them the direction and authority to allow a customer to leave happy. If a customer has a complaint, in the past the employee’s model response at best would be to say, “I’ll have the manager call you.” Most times it would be “Well, that’s the way it is,” and so on.
Today, give your employees the authority to correct the situation and allow that customer to walk away happy. Simply use discretion on this statement. When this approach is used effectively, it has been proven to build customer loyalty and increase a customer base in a business.
Please start thinking in terms of your front line people, as they are a critical ingredient to success.
