Creating Memorable Customer Service at Your Restaurant with Chris Tripoli (Ep 248)

 

Restaurant goers will certainly remember good food bundled with good customer service. By creating a point of differentiation in these areas, you can make your place not only commendable but also memorable. Chris Tripoli of The Restaurant Clinic discusses why a personalized and specialized approach is the rising trend every restaurant should take advantage of in this age when so many food choices are readily available and easily accessible. He also shares insights on adjusting to customer needs in a post-pandemic world, starting a restaurant even with little to no experience, and using the latest technology to level up your operations.

Find out more at https://www.therestaurantclinic.com/

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Creating A Memorable Customer Service With Chris Tripoli

Coming up on this episode of the show, we've got a terrifically well-rounded conversation that hits a variety of key topics all along the restaurant operator spectrum. Guest Chris Tripoli of The Restaurant Clinic and I buzz through the challenges operators face as well as the opportunities that exist. Don't miss this one. Stay tuned.

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How Difficult Is The Restaurant Industry Right Now

I got a great episode for you. I'm here with Chris Tripoli, Principal of The Restaurant Clinic. Chris has over 45 years of service in the hospitality industry as a concept developer, owner-operator, restaurant consultant, as well as a regular speaker at association events. We're going to go in a whole bunch of directions. You've seen a lot. What are some of your hot buttons?

Thank you so much for having me. There are a few. For people who are using this as a time to start up a new idea or get into the industry for the first time, not only is it extremely competitive, and it has always been so, but it's also so hard in some areas. Finding locations, the increasing costs, which are insane in some areas, and the time that it's taking for design, permitting, and opening are some hot buttons that we're cautioning and helping people entering our industry with.

For those who are in the industry, the biggest hot button is adjusting to the post-COVID customer demands. I know it has been a couple of years or more, but still, we have a lot of people in the independent operator sector who have been slow to adjust to balancing the need for convenience with delivering the service that the guest still deserves. We're up to our elbows working with people on that one. It’s a big hot button.

I want to ask you this question. You spent a lot of time in an independent space, and you were there yourself. It used to be the case where a lot of folks would want to open up a restaurant. They’re like, “That sounds like a fun idea.” While that still exists, I want to get your opinion on how that's changed because it's no longer something you can do as a hobby. It's a very tough business to do profitably. I feel like I'm not seeing as many independent startups with no experience as there may have been in the past. Do you feel the same way? How difficult is it now versus how it might've been years ago?

We're still seeing that. You mentioned that. They’re like, “I can't wait to leave my earlier profession and jump in. Even though I have no experience, I'm willing to risk my retirement. I'm going to open up a little pizza place because all my neighbors say I make the best pizza.” We’re still seeing a little bit of that craziness. I like your point. It is a little bit less, and it's because people are more informed. People are a little better prepared.

A lot of these people think our industry is so much fun because they normally see it from the guest's point of view, going into their joint that they like every Friday night. They see everyone happy, smiling, and working. They think, “This is a fun way to make a living. I hate that I have to go to work. I sit in a cubicle all day. These people have fun. I've got to quit and join them.”

The reason we're seeing a little less of that is because there are so many good sources. For example, yours. There are other web sources and associations. There's so much more knowledge out there that people can see very quickly, and they can learn about the costs involved. They can learn about the liabilities, how hard it is to qualify for funding, and how much funding is required. We're doing a better job of educating. That's probably what's keeping some of that entry-level lower than before.

Check-Up With The Restaurant Clinic

Let's go back to The Restaurant Clinic. I had spent some time on the site. It almost read like a doctor's menu, prescribing this and giving a checkup. Tell me what you guys are doing there.

That's a lot of fun. We're taking that approach to try to keep small independence healthy. We start with an overall checkup, which might be called the operations assessment, to see strengths of the particular client, how we can help them, exemplify, do more in their area of strengths, correct some of the weaknesses, which is the short-term prescription. Sometimes, it's tough to take medicine, but the creation of system procedures helps improve consistency and create better margins.

We're doing a lot of that. My brother David is taking the lead. He's doing a good job. He keeps me busy. I assist him. We've got a small team. We're having a ball working together. We've got clients from the Carolinas, Canada, Texas, Alabama, and Arizona. He's bouncing around a little bit. That's what we're doing. We’re working with the people who are in the business, but they're relatively small. They're independently owned. They want to improve their performance, or they want to start expanding. There's a tremendous amount of needs from structure, finance, team building, and leadership development that's needed when you're in that kind of situation. That's what we're doing.

You work with your brother. Have you guys worked together for a long time, or not?

We worked together before. It’s interesting. When I first started out as a young guy, I had a couple of backers who believed in an idea of mine, so I got to open my very first restaurant. My brother David was my very first hire. He was my first general manager of the very first restaurant. We're dating ourselves. We're going back to the early ‘80s. I was this young buck with a swinging door saloon. It was a casual concept. It was fun. We opened 1 and it did well, and then we opened a 2nd and a 3rd. I worked with David during that period of time. Now, we get to work again together.

 

When restaurants get over the initial hump, they start to see the benefits of getting a good inventory management.

 

I love the phrase, “Take your medicine.” We've done webinars or shows. Before, we've used the phrase, “You've got to do your homework.” You've got to put the data in. You've got to put the menu costing in. If you don't put it in, you're not going to get the information that you need. Do you see a lack of time or a lack of efficiency in getting the data into these systems, like taking inventory or getting menu costs? Is that a big challenge for folks? How do you get them through it?

We almost have to do what we call show and tell, and then spoon feeding. It’s like the baby's in a high chair. You have to take a step at a time and a small spoonful at a time. The reason it's getting a little bit easier is that we've got some good technology support that we didn't have long ago. People are very familiar now with getting all their information from the POS. They can manage their item sales reports. They're labor by the hour. They can do weekly forecasts. They can compare actuals to projections a lot easier now than we used to.

When it comes to inventory, there are some very common programs, whether it's MarginEdge or whether it's xtraCHEF by Toast. We don't represent one or the other. We want our clients to pick something, and then we have to sit and help them get it started. What we're finding is once they get over that initial hump, they see the benefits and are like, “This is good. Once I get all that data in, I'm going to be able to get good, useful inventory management, such as ordering to par levels and controlling costs.” You have to help them. It's all about baby steps. Once they get going, you can take the training wheels off, and they're on their own.

I love that you brought that up. The tech is so phenomenal. A couple of years ago, maybe it’s there. Many years ago, certainly not, or it was very expensive, or only McDonald's and Taco Bell had it, and they could do all these fancy things with it. Now, it's affordable for everybody. You need it because it's the only way to squeeze these pennies out. It's the only way to find a few percentages in your operation to do the tech the right way. Restaurants have historically struggled with this. If you're not using tech, it's sitting there and waiting for you to get more efficient, so please do that.

Leadership Through Listening and Engagement

You talked about people. You talked about leadership and culture. I want to go there for a second. Maybe it's web-based or you do in-person. How do you get a group together? Maybe it's an all-hands-on-deck meeting, talking about service and talking about the concept. What do these meetings look like with staff that's a little bit fragmented, with different age groups and different mindsets? There’s Distraction America on our phones. They’re like, “Where’s my phone?” Everyone's distracted by their phones. How do you talk to staff?

It is a little different. I go way back, where it was a lot more about preparation and presenting. You're selling your ideas. You're doing all the teaching, which you do a little bit of. The way things work with the worker, the person who was born in a handheld, and they don't know life before instantaneous gratification, our approach is a lot more through engagement.

You have to do some in-person where you're getting the existing team together. You've got to do a lot more listening. You've got to engage with the team to learn about them, what their hot buttons are, likes, and dislikes. Everyone seems to have a slightly different motivation. Once we figure that out, then we have them help us by creating a development program that's going to work for them, so that they feel they were engaged in the process and they helped develop the development program.

It's so much easier for them to feel responsible for the work to do if they feel like they had input. It's so much easier for us to hold them accountable for something that they feel they're responsible for. That's how we do it. It starts with a lot of in-person work. Most of the follow-up, though, can be done with some very good Zoom discussions that are done on a weekly basis.

Good run through there. Getting that buy-in is so important. You could have a meeting, write 10 things on the board that came right from you, and tell them those 10 things, and they're going to be like, “That's great.” If you sit there and say, “Let's talk about ten things,” and they create the 10 things and you write them down on the board, you're going to have such a different level of engagement and accountability. I like that walkthrough.

How Good Staff Translates to Good Customer Service

This leads me right to the next question. On your website, one of the bullets says, “Happy staff equals happy customers.” You've got this engaged staff. They are maybe in a good mindset to deliver good service, which is lacking out there, in large part. Talk about that aspect, having the staff translating to the customers.

That's exactly how it is. It takes a little bit of time. Once that staff is engaged and once they feel like they have some input into the program, whether they're servers, counter servers, bartenders, or back-of-the-house staff, we find that they feel better. That creates a little bit of self-satisfaction. That's what helps them be happy while they're working. You can feed that happiness.

The more they know about what they're doing, and not just doing it, but why, like, “Why is this function important? Why is my station supposed to be set up this way? Why is it better if I do this 1st, then do this 2nd? Why do these steps of service seem to work better for guest satisfaction?” and the more they understand the rationale, the happier they are doing it.

How that translates to the guest is, quite simply, we have found that the more comfortable somebody is with their knowledge, the more confident they'll be in displaying it. Watch that person on the line. The more comfortable he or she is with how it's supposed to work, and they're happy because they understand how it's supposed to work, the more confident they are in meeting those ticket times and keeping those plate portions consistent. They're doing it with vigor.

 

People are expecting more from food. They understand local buying and farm-to-table. They are cooking better at home. Restaurants must create a point of difference in customer experience.

 

On the other side of the table, we notice that the staff will interface with customers so much better. They'll do suggestive selling. They'll issue compliments. They'll walk people to the door. They'll be very genuine with their thank yous. You've got a sincere service model working, but it's all because they're working with confidence. How did you get them confident? You made them comfortable with the knowledge of what they're supposed to be doing. That's our approach.

I love when I get experiences. Unfortunately, they're in the twentieth percentile. I eat out a lot with the family, and I'm not getting enough engagement from the staff. I'm seeing very mediocre service. If you can do what you talked about, I will come back to your restaurant. I promise you, I will. I appreciate that, especially as prices are going up.

Sometimes, there are 3 of us, 4 of us, or 5 of us if we have the whole family together, and that is a $100 bill. We are dropping $100, so I want to feel that I get not only real value, but perceived value. Part of it comes from the food, but a good part of it comes from the service, the people, and everything that you talked about. Please up the perceived value and the real value as your customers are spending a lot more money. It's a big deal.

Creating A Point of Differentiation

There is another note from your site that I want to go to next and try to change gears a little bit. This one's important for independents, so I want to pick your brain. “How to create a point of differentiation.” How are you different? Why should I choose you? I have 50 places to choose from for lunch, 50 places to choose from for dinner, and some marketplaces have a lot more. How do I choose you? How do they look different? What do you think?

That point of difference is getting harder to do because we are a very competitive industry. What we used to hear years ago is, “My point of difference is I'm the only guy that uses this particular food item,” or, “I'm the only person who does this type of a seasoning process,” or, “I've got the most unique type of marinade,” or, “I import only French butter from France. Hardly anyone does that. That's what makes my bakery unique.” All of those examples I gave you are real-life things I heard from clients.

The good news is that it's important. Can a product be a point of difference? Sure, but we say no longer can you stand by that. People are so food knowledgeable. We can thank the Food Network for that. Everybody understands much more about food. People are expecting more about food. They understand local buying and farm-to-table. They're cooking better at home.

We can't stand by that. We have to create a point of difference in the experience. It's how I'm going to treat you. I have to put more emphasis on the things that you mentioned that our industry seems to be stumbling at. That's personalization and service. How about some follow-up? How about the point of difference that we want to get to know you and try to get you from being satisfied to becoming loyal? That means bonding with us. We want you to join our whatever particular tasting club.

Everyone's got everyone's phone numbers if you do online ordering or you make a reservation, so why not do a little follow-up text with a thank you, or a little question about the experience that they had? We're trying to get our clients to use points of difference as impact in the experience. When people leave, they get something from your place that's very hard to get somewhere else, such as personalization, service, and follow-through. That’s where most people are stumbling. That's where we're creating the biggest void to fill.

Good stuff there. The personalization stuff is good. I feel like a broken record because I happen to be re-reading this book called Hug Your Customers. It's an old book. I brought it up with another guest recently.

This book talks about a clothing company in Connecticut that’s selling suits, jackets, and ties. I swear to God, everyone should read this book. It's not a new book. It's been around forever. They used technology back in the ‘70s and ‘80s before other folks used it. They used it in such smart ways, such as knowing your customer and giving a personalized experience.

If I sit down with my family and I've been to your restaurant before, it shouldn't be like, “Is this your first time?” I’m like, “No, I had you last time. You should know me.” It should be like, “Good to see you guys again. Thanks for coming back.” I pretty much get the same beer. The wife gets the same wine. You have the database. You can know who I am when I come in. That stuff can be skipped over.

Chris’ Book Recommendation

There are those opportunities. When you start to do that for your customer, that's going to make your place special. The opportunity is easily there. They check in. You already have the database. The server scans it quickly and remembers some quick facts about you. There are lots of opportunities there. Check out that book. You'll read it as a restaurant operator going, “Those guys are doing it, and I'm not doing any of that stuff. That's crazy.” Talking about books....anything you're reading or anything you think hospitality folks should read?

You made me think of a couple of things that are very helpful to anybody in the business. I recommend Monty Moran's book, the one that's called Love is Free. Guac is Extra. Monty Moran, who was the Co-CEO for Chipotle Grill for years, talked about his approach. The reason a lot of independents can get great knowledge from this is that he's a person with a legal background. He had a blank canvas of restaurant operations to look at.

 

Restaurants must make decisions based on hitting the target, not based on what they like.

 

He studied the field and turned their HR approach around to become more inside the four walls rather than recruiting from the outside, rather than being influenced by others in the industry that came before, and trying to create strength from those who believed in them, which were the workers who were there. He wound up getting much better input and much better engagement. He created a very positive work environment. All of those steps are steps that we use when we are working with independents. Then, there's unreasonable hospitality.

Working In Quick Service

It keeps coming up on the show. If you haven't read that, you have to read it because everybody I talk to says you have to read that. Chipotle is one of those brands that's doing very well. I know my kids love it. That whole quick service genre as a whole is doing well. Do you work in that space? Have you seen changes there, or have you not been in the quick service?

We have worked and continue to work in the quick service. The idea of people wanting to expand by doing smaller footprints is driving that. The idea of that value for the dollar is driving quick service. The fact that you can get curbside or third-party delivery so easily and yet still order online and eat in if you like drives that market. We have a lot of experience in that market, working with small independent brands and then getting them bigger. We have been in the burrito business, salad bar business, taco business, and enchilada house. We have been all over the place in quick service.

What we've done is we've coined the challenge we call 5-star in 5 seconds. When you have limited time, how can you challenge your counter servers, your person on the floor, your busser, or your to-go sacker to make an impact when they only have a few seconds? That's how we come up with unique things that will still help people with welcoming, eye contact, suggestive selling, complimenting the order, a reminder of next week's special, a certain thank you, and appreciation. We've got to mix that in to where you have very little time, but you're still showing guest appreciation. We call that 5-star service in 5 seconds. It's a challenge, but it works.

I like that because. As you're talking, I'm thinking that when I place the mobile order and I walk in to pick it up, sometimes, it's on a counter, and sometimes, you need to interact with folks. That could be a very bland, “Here you go. Here's your thing.” You could do one of the small things that you talked about and add a little color to that experience. Choice B is better than Choice A.

Working With Young and Startup Restauranteurs

I love ordering digitally, and I'm sure a lot of other folks do. This is not rocket science. I'm not telling you anything new. The younger generation especially likes to do it. If your restaurant's not plugged in with all those options, please get there. You're missing out. You’re leaving dollars left and right. Curbside, ordering ahead, and getting ahead on the waitlist, all those things are critical. I know you work with young restaurant folks and startup folks. I grabbed this again from your site because I liked it. “The principles every young restaurant business owner should know but probably doesn't.” What do you have there?

Here's one. You're probably not your customer. That’s important when you're taking a look at your particular concept and you're wanting to make the best possible decisions. A lot of times, we need to make sure that you're focused on your core customer. Do you know who that core customer is? When they can study and see the demographics, like the income level, the amount of time that they spend in the store, the size of the party, and family singles, whether it is more male or more female, a lot of times, once we develop that, we turn to the owner and say, “That's not you.”

“You're a 60-year-old White guy. Look who your demographic is, this younger college, unbelievable, multi-mix of gender and nationality. We need to be making our decisions based on hitting the target, not making our decisions based on what you like.” That's something that we see a lot. It's mainly because too many times, the owner isn't necessarily the customer.

Making Customer Service Memorable

That's interesting. As an operator yourself, growing up in the business, you would've received advice all along the way. Anything that stands out from you historically as a piece of advice that you find yourself going back to, or you say, “That was good. That was helpful.”

Many, but you made me think of my very first one. I'm going to go all the way back to when I was fifteen. My very first job was at a high-end steak and seafood place. Back then, you were wearing the red buss coats, the cover buns, and the bow ties. It was very formal. We had a general manager there, Ray Nardoni. I can remember him telling me then, “Listen to me now. If this is a business you like and you think you're going to stay in this, I want you to know that long after these people leave tonight, long after they forget exactly what they ordered, because they will, and long after they forget exactly what they paid, because they will, they won't forget how they were treated.”

“You want people to be able to, weeks later, drive by the building, look, and go, “I had a good time there. We’ve got to go back there.” They may not know what they ordered or they may not know what they paid, but they know, “That place made me happy.” From a very early age, I was told about how to make the experience special. If you can't have fun serving people and make the experience special, then we're missing the boat.

Balancing Trust and Faith

That one's awesome. To learn that at such a young age is crucial. Those lessons don't always come to you at such a young age. You don't find some of that stuff out until later. Maybe let's stick in that advice category. Anything else jumping out to you in mind? Maybe it was midway along the journey, or a mentor shared some more stuff with you. What else jumps out to you?

The other thing that I always like to try to tell people is the careful balance between trust and faith. This is a people business. Once you're in it, once you've got your systems, and once you feel like, “I might have something here. I can create value in this brand. How do I take that next step?” We always want to explain to people that you want to make sure that you've got a team that you feel is compatible, more so than capable.

 

Restaurant is a people business. You want to be able to trust your people. Be sure you have the right individuals in the right places.

 

Compatibility trumps capability. You can train and help people become more capable, but if they're not compatible with your principles, your culture, and what's important to you, then you have to do some work on your team. It's a people business, so you want to be able to trust your people. They're the right people in the right place. You have to put your faith in the system.

If you think you're expandable or you think you've got something that you can create value in, you've got to have faith in your systems so that you can see your information, monitor your costs, and be quick to react to things when you need to. That only comes if you're managing your product, your people, and your costs consistently, and you have good, efficient systems.

More Specialization in the Restaurant Industry

There's so much going on. There are so many moving parts in this business. You can't do it all, so you need to have that trust and faith in your team and the staff that you build and develop. The last area that I want to go to is trends and the future. If you were to project two, three, or four years down the road, what do you think the restaurant industry looks like? What might change? What's coming? What do you think?

We're going to see more specialization. We're going to see smaller restaurants, but we're still going to see full service. I don't think full service is going away, even though counter service is rapidly expanding twice the rate. That's because we're social people and we still like the sit-down interaction. Five or ten years from now, we're going to see more specialization in the menu and more rotation of products in order to stay fresh. Everyone's going to be doing seasonal or more menuing.

We're going to be able to see an adjustment, or you might say a continued adjustment to the new definition of value. We're going to see more operators realizing that value is not defined by cheap. We did a disservice to the industry many years ago when we were introducing the word value. What it meant was a cheap price, a value meal at a drive-thru, and a value meal that's in a box that's only available Monday through Friday at lunch.

What the customer is teaching us, which we're going to be adjusting to better, is that they're defining value on the overall worth. “Was this worth my time sitting in your restaurant, ordering online, or eating at home? Was this worth it?” Worth is defined more by quality, consistency, price, service, and ambiance. Those are all working together. We're not there yet, but my prediction is we're going to be working more towards that.

Get In Touch with Chris

Lots of good stuff there. I'll echo the value equation again. I've been happy to spend $120, and I've been pissed off to spend $30 at a restaurant based on the whole experience, food combination, marketing, everything. It's not one or the other. It's the whole experience. Good stuff. Do you have parting thoughts or website links? Tell them about your podcast. Is there anything we missed?

This has been great. I love the topics that we're talking about. Everyone can listen to Corner Booth if they like. That's an interesting podcast. I've been fortunate to host it for the last few years. It's a product of RestaurantOwner.com, which is owned and promoted by the National Restaurant Association. Corner Booth is a forum to expose restaurant entrepreneurs. They share their story that everyone can learn from, like what they did right, what they did wrong, what they'd never do again, what's important to them, etc. It's a personal sharing of somebody's journey. Other than that, TheRestaurantClinic.com is a great place to find me and others, and a way to connect and maybe get some help if you need it.

We covered a lot in under 30 minutes. This has been great. Hopefully, folks found it useful as well. Folks, this was Chris Tripoli of The Restaurant Clinic. You can find him at TheRestaurantClinic.com for more great tips in restaurant marketing, service people, tech, and more. Stay tuned to us here at RunningRestaurants.com. In the meantime, if you could do us a favor, share the episode, like it, rate it, and review it wherever you watch it. That is a big help. We appreciate it. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Chris.

Thank you. Have a great day.

 

Important Links

• The Restaurant Clinic
• Chris Tripoli on LinkedIn
• Corner Booth Podcast
• Hug Your Customers
• Love is Free. Guac is Extra