Recommendations for a client business - Essay Example

On the other hand, Strait’s business rival M.Y. China had their hostess at the podium to warmly greet the incoming guests and seat them most of the times. The restaurant manager also helped her seat the guests especially when more than one guest came in at the same time. This resulted in fewer complaints from customers and more importantly shorter periods in seating the customers. The hostess at M.Y. China is always in a jovial mood and welcomes guests in a friendly and a professional manner.

It is apparent that from the customer comments that even when customers did not get her at the podium she made up with the welcoming gestures. She always engaged eye contact with her the guests, smiled and used a friendly tone when talking to them (Yelp). Therefore, Straits should put efforts in improving its service standards if it is to maintain its clientele, especially with increased competition from its next-door competitor M.Y. China. For instance, many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with declining food quality, service level and the restaurant’s general experience.

The customers also bemoan the inattentiveness and the unprofessional manner with which the hostess and other workers behave themselves. Such negative perceptions from the customers may eventually hurt the restaurant’s business if they are not addressed. Some customers have complained about the absence of a clear job structure that results in ambiguity in the roles that different persons perform. For example, some guests have to wait to be ushered into the restaurant when the hostess is helping the servicer to clear the tables.

Some customers also observed that the restaurant seems not to have an outlined task plan to ensure smooth flow of operations. This is apparent when customers who have made a reservation come into the restaurant and the hostess looks clueless when they enquire about their table. Sometimes she ends up mumbling some apologies and seating the guests in a different table. Recommendations The observers made some recommendations after a thorough evaluation of the service standards of Straits restaurant and comparing it to that of its competitor M.Y. China.

Since the main issue was found to be the absence of the hostess at the podium, the group of observers formulated some recommendations that outlined tasks that would ensure that a hostess was always manning the podium area in order to greet and usher in incoming guests. The recommendations are outlined as follows: i. Organizing the reservations This would involve the hostess staying at the podium and organize any reservations that are made on the phone. The hostess should answer incoming machine messages to confirm that that all reservations have been noted.

In addition, the hostess should schedule the reservations for all guests in advance and formulate a plan on how to receive and seat the guests as and when they arrive. This should include a seating chart. It is important for the hostess to ask the guests some specific questions when they call in to make the reservations in order to have some basic information beforehand. Such information will assist the hostess in creating customer profiles that include names and contacts such as telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

However, the hostess may encounter problems that may be difficult to solve. For instance, what does the