The importance of social media to the hospitality industry only seems to be strengthening. Social media has democratised which restaurants and cafes get noticed. Most restaurants and cafes are run by small business owners who should embrace social media as a low cost tool for building awareness and getting customers through the door. 

When deciding what social media platforms you should have a presence on, consider your target customer and where they spend most of their time. 

Explore sites like Facebook and Foursquare which allow diners to check-in to your restaurant or cafe. 

Review sites like Yelp and Urban Spoon are a great way to monitor feedback of your customers and make any necessary improvements. 

One Increasingly popular piece of social media technology in the US is Facebook ordering. Sites like Net Waiter can add this function to your site. It's low cost and has the potential to grow sales. 

No matter what social media platform you choose, creating compelling content and interacting is they key to ensure engagement with your existing customers and attracting new ones 

Via: Hospitality Magazine; Forbes; The Next Web; CRM Solutions

The hospitality industry is notorious for it's high staff turnover. Reasons for this include:

• Unsociable working hours
  
• Physically demanding work
  
• Temporary nature of many employment contracts

However another factor is a poor process when interviewing hospitality staff. 

A recent study by Griffith University found that Australian hotels have more than a 50% staff turnover rate. The study put the figure to replace those staff to be on average $770,000.  

What the study makes clear is that the financial cost of high turnover directly effects your business bottom line.

Hospitality businesses operate with very tight profit margins. So it makes sense to get your hiring right. You stand to improve your profitability if you do.

Here are 3 tips you should focus on when interviewing hospitality staff to ensure you hire candidates that are going to stick around.

When interviewing staff for your hospitality business one of your goals should be to determine whether the candidate will make a good fit with your business. Think about the personality of the brand, the customers you serve and your existing staff. Do you see this candidate fitting in?

Some questions you can ask to uncover whether the person you are hiring is a good fit for your business include:


Why do you want to work here?

• You want the candidate you are hiring to be enthusiastic and keen to join your team. 

What are your greatest strengths?

• By asking this question you can determine whether the candidate is a good fit for the role you are hiring. You can also match their strengths against the rest of your staff. Does this candidate fill a gap that you might need?
  

Where do you like to go out to drink and eat?

• A candidates personal interest is a good way to discover their personality. You are then in a better position to assess their fit with other members of you team and other business stakeholders.

When interviewing hospitality staff for your business determine ways to involve more people in the process. Existing staff who will be in regular contact with a new employee are prime candidates to have input into the hiring of a new staff member. This is one way to ensure that when someone new is hired they are readily accepted, fit in and can make an impact straight away. It also promotes open communication, a good team atmosphere and culture which is critical in the hospitality industry.

Once the new staff is hired have a mentor system in place whereby they shadow an existing staff member. They will get a better insight into the processes and procedures of your business and will learn their role as well as those of others.

Via: Hospitality Magazine, Frontline Hospitality, HR News Daily, Open For Business


We'd love to hear your thoughts. What have you found to be a critical part of your hiring process to ensure that your hire the best staff for your hospitality business?

Running a cafe is tough. At ViViPOS we're all about making things simpler. So we've compiled ten tips for cafe owners. In 2015 consider implementing them in your business.

Running a cafe is just like running any other business and a successful business has a point of difference. This is something you do better than your competitors. Ask yourself what makes your cafe unique?

One way to find the answer is to analyse your competition. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Compare them to your cafe. Another option is to ask your customers, especially repeat customers. What is it that brings them back time and again?

Once you have determined what makes your cafe unique, your job is to exploit it. Make sure all the marketing your do for your cafe conveys the message. 

Your cafes menu is usually one of the first points of contact for customers. You need to make a great first impression. 

Your menu should be an extension of your cafe's brand and convey the same message.

Consider:

• Describing how the menu-item has been cooked. Use evocative words like pan-fried, poached and wood-fired.
• What makes your dish unique. Is it organic, locally sourced or gluten-free?
• Highlighting seasonal or unique ingredients.
• Including where ingredients are sourced from. As with wine, a foods location can add value to a meal.
• Adding greater description. What type of bread are you serving, what type of grains are you serving in your muesli? Giving greater detail can enhance the perception of a dish.
  

Your cafe is more profitable if you serve more people. If your just starting out select a space that is adaptable and gives you room to grow as your business does. 

If you are already in your space be on top of local council laws and consider how you can expand your service area. If you decide to expand your space be careful when you select your contractor. Often the cheaper option can be more expensive in the long run.

In the cafe business where margins are thin, even the smallest cost savings can add up over time. 

Consider:

• Switching to energy efficient light bulbs
• Invest in energy efficient appliances 
• Eliminate slow moving food items from your menu

Inc.com gives the example of US restaurant that assigns each guest a number. Based on a scale of 1-10, staff rank the customers mood. Anything below a 7 indicates the guest is unhappy. The ranking is placed in a number of spots around the restaurant so every staff member can see. Staff make it their mission to get all dinners up to a 9 by the end of their meal. Complementary drinks and tours of the kitchen are just two examples of methods employed to improve a customers mood. The owner considers it their duty to make their customers happy.

Implementing a POS system arms you with knowledge to know what's going on in your business. Is it time you throw out your cash register? There are many advantages to implementing a POS system including:

• Simplify management
• The ability to track sales, cash flow and inventory
• Help save money on food costs and payroll
  
• Identify the popularity of menu items

The more informed you are about what's going on in your cafe the better decisions you make. The result: a more profitable business with less stress.

Via: Hospitality Magazine, inc, about money, Dummies

In the hospitality business we aim to keep customers happy. Unless your Basil Fawlty nobody deliberately sets out to make a customer angry. It doesn't matter who you are though, there will be a situation where a customer is unhappy with a product or service that you provide. Here's how to handle an angry customer.

The first step in how to handle an angry customer is to stay calm. If a customer starts yelling at you do not respond by yelling also. The focus will immediately turn to who can yell the loudest. This escalates the situation and will not help solve the cause of the anger. Focus on deep breathing as a way to remain calm.

From the outset assume the customer is right and take that frame of mind rather than being defensive. By changing your frame of reference from being defensive to a position of empathy, you put yourself in a better position to defuse the situation.

Remember that if a customer is angry, they are angry at the product or service, not you as a person. Repeat this to yourself as a method to remain calm.

The best thing to do when a customer is angry is to listen. By actively listening to the customers complaint you put yourself in the best position to understand the cause of their frustration. Allow the customer to keep talking until there is silence. This will help diffuse the customers anger. Only once the customer has finished speaking should you talk. Summarise what you have heard from the customer and clarify with any questions. Confirm with the customer that what you've heard is correct. By listening to the customer you should be able to determine the emotional reason and the technical reason for the complaint. For example a customer may complain when they don't receive the correct meal they requested. After listening to the customer you may discover that they are now late for a movie. Deal with the emotional issue before you deal with the technical as this is the cause of the frustration.

Having discovered the cause of the customers anger the next step is to sympathise with their anger. The first step is to speak softly. Summaries what you have heard from the customer to show you've actively listened to what they've said. Ask questions if you need to and ask the customer to confirm what you have relayed back to them is correct. Part of sympathising with the customer is focused on body language. Ensure eye-contact, stand or sit upright and make sure your arms aren't folded. Showing you understand a customers frustration through words and body language can go a long way in addressing the concerns of an angry customer.

Whether you feel the customer is right or wrong the best thing to do is to apologise. For whatever reason their expectations of your product or service have not been met. A simple "I'm sorry, let's make this right," is enough.

The customer has come to you to express frustration at the business, you should be the one to help. You may feel tempted to pass off the issue to someone else because it's not your responsibility. This is likely to make the person more angry because they have taken their time to explain their situation to you and now feel powerless to have it resolved. Call on any assistance you need but ensure you remain committed to resolving the problem.

Solving the problem for the customer is a two step process. Having listened to the customers concerns you should have identified the emotional issue and the technical one. Using the example above, the technical issue may have been that the waiter misheard the patron when they ordered. The emotional issue is that the customer is now running late and is what has made the customer angry. Resolve the pressing emotional issue first and then go about rectifying the technical. Work out what went wrong and implement a long term fix to at least minimise the likelihood of the situation repeating.

Confronting an angry customer can be a stressful situation. This is the case even if you've handled the situation well. Make sure you take at least a few minutes to yourself after such an event. Go for a walk, talk to a friend, do what you need to do to get back in the right frame of mind to talk to customers again.

It is likely that the technical side to any complaint will involve a longer term fix. Ensure that the customer who made the complaint receives a follow up. Reassure them that steps have been taken to rectify the issue. By reassuring the customer and showing attentiveness you are more likely to avoid the loss of a customer and may even attract new ones based on your determination to set things right.

Via: Forbes, BusinessKnowHow.com