It's the Offer Stupid

 Cambridge Dictionary definition of hospitality: The act of being friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors:

We hear so much at the moment about difficult times for the hospitality industry.  Against a background of inflation and wage restraint, it is so obvious that there are major issues. These trials and tribulations are now featuring in mainstream newspapers and radio programmes, as well as, more obviously, trade press, blogs and podcasts.  These difficulties include, among other things, staff shortages, rising prices of everything supplied and sold to the industry as well as, lack of customers due to high prices and domestic and commercial difficulties caused by the effect of the huge increases in electricity and gas.

Of course this applies elsewhere, and the hospitality sector include restaurants, theatres, hotels as well as pubs and social clubs.  My interest, of course, is mainly pubs, so it is to that I turn in this brief post.  Now, I have used the term "It's the offer Stupid" in my blogs before.  I would draw your attention to this post in particular, which dates back to June 2013.  The main thrust of it, in case you can't be bothered reading it, is that back then, a survey said among other things that "People (47%) cite "poor customer service" as one of the main reasons not to go to a pub, along with the unwelcoming atmosphere(44%)."

I am reasonably sure, anecdotally at least, that it is highly unlikely that this generally negative view will have changed too much over the nearly ten years since the survey was taken. Service in pubs remains poor and yes I know the difficulties, but in these very challenging times you'd think that ensuring the customers are made welcome and accommodated as much as is humanly possible would be a very high priority indeed.  You really do need customers to return, so a small training investment in this basic area is really a no-brainer, and to make it even easier, the very people that you wish to convince are themselves customers elsewhere too, so it should be a relatively straightforward point to get across.

Let me give you a few recent examples.  There is a local pub that I don't go to that often, but which has picked up a decent reputation for food, though the wet trade is also a good part of the business, probably round half or so. It is a pub in which people still stand at the bar to drink, although there are plenty of other seating and eating areas.  On my once every two or three months or so visits, it is my experience that when you go in the bar staff are usually, if not actually serving, standing with their backs to the bar, gossiping.  This is quite annoying in itself, but on my recent visit, two different customers called goodbye to the staff with no response whatever.  When my time to leave came, I left unnoticed too, though I had stood at the bar for my two pints. When I worked in the pub, the boss then taught us always to say hello to new customers entering, and to thank them when they left. His simple logic? Make them feel welcome and they'll come back. That was in the times when pubs were bursting at the seams. How much more important is that simple act of appreciation now?  God knows what he'd have thought of not looking outwards from the bar.  It is simple. Look outwards, that's where the money is.

In my recent trip to Belfast, we met a couple of friends in a local brew pub.  They wanted to eat, and we didn't, having had a large hotel cooked breakfast and a meal booked later.  Firstly, it was odd that table service seemed to be mandatory.  Oh well, if that's what it is - fine.  We spent around three hours in there enjoying very good beer indeed, until the server came over to say she was going off duty, and we'd have to pay up.  This was odd, but we asked her to wait a moment while we divvied up the bill. "You can't" she said. "Someone will have to pay, and you can sort it yourselves later." What? There was no choice and to add insult to injury, a 10% service charge was applied as we were a table of four. So, I paid, was duly reimbursed by my pals, and we left, disgruntled and annoyed, for another pub.  

By way of contrast, I met three friends a few weeks ago in a pub in Manchester. We all ate and had several drinks. The friendly barman very kindly even brought drinks over to us old dodderers. When it came time to pay, and we asked to split the bill four ways, he said that as long as it came to the total, it was no problem. He got a good tip too, and we all agree we'll meet there again. 

So the message to pubs is to treat your customers well - they are all of your business. Say hello and goodbye and make life as easy as possible for them. Treat them as welcome guests. They have a choice, you know, and in these hard times, I suspect they will readily exercise it.

Oddly, the first two cases were individual business, while the Manchester example was a brewery managed house.

No such issues in our Belfast hotel, which really was welcoming to customers, as were the majority of Belfast pubs.