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June 1, 2007 |
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| Improving the service game | |||
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Since most food & beverage operations
have relatively little flexibility in pricing, it would appear on
the surface that rigorous cost control should be the single-minded
focus. Yet slavishly controlling costs at the expense of providing
an enjoyable guest experience is self-defeating.
“Most operators pay too much attention to cost containment and not enough on building customer loyalty,” said Marty Miles, president of Casino Food & Beverage Solutions, a consulting firm. The first step in building customer loyalty is understanding their preferences, which can be obtained by capturing and analyzing information from the restaurant floor. Harrah’s Entertainment’s Rio All-Suite Resort Casino in Las Vegas, for example, uses Avero Slingshot™ business intelligence software to gather data on menu development, server productivity, and remembering individual guest preferences. The system provides important information about trends and alerts Rio to potential with a click of a mouse. Avero Slingshot™ can easily track which menu items are most popular at all of the Rio’s restaurants and bars, so management can tailor menus and food purchases to ensure customers get what they like. It provides waiters, bartenders and servers with information on how to improve customer service, and lets the Rio keep track of frequent guests, and the restaurants and menu items they prefer. With this information from previous visits, Rio can surprise customers by asking them if they would like a specific item that they had during their last visit. The business intelligence behind Avero Slingshot™ also provides insights for operators to make better business decisions, such as how to train servers on delivering an optimal guest experience, how to reengineer and appropriately price items on menus to more effectively manage their labor costs. —Steve Marlin |
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