Restaurants Investing Less in Service (Restaurants and Institutions 9.1.09)

[Mr Paul C. Paz]

Restaurants Investing Less in Service Restaurants and Institutions, 9/1/2009 http://www.rimag.com/article/CA6686530.html?nid=3458&rid=12524611 In the face of sluggish sales, more than half of restaurant operators say they're cutting back on customer-service training. A recent study by the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART), a Westfield, N.J.-based trade association, found 53% of operators reporting that their training budgets had decreased in the past 18 months. In casual dining, 64% said they'd allocated less money for training. But even when budgets are shrinking, reinforcing high customer-service standards is crucial for new hires as well as more-experienced workers, says John Isbell, CHART's immediate past president and a leader of the study. “Cutting training hurts operators' ability to service guests who are looking for an experience,” Isbell says. “Those operators who continue to find inexpensive ways to [emphasize] service are the ones who will be ahead of the curve when the economy turns around.” Role-playing is an underutilized training method, he adds. “Once [workers] envision and go through a situation, it's so much easier.”