5 May 2010
Selling Techniques to Increase Restaurant’s Profits
Posted by Crystal under: Recession Tips & Tricks; Restaurant Business .
Every restaurant should implement an effective training program to teach their employees basic selling techniques. Servers’ function should be not just to serve food, but enhance customer experience, effectively sell menu items and increase restaurant’s profits.
Server Training. Teach all new employees the basics of selling. Training should also include educating your servers about menu items, including detailed knowledge of ingredients and preparation processes. When servers know more about menu items, they will be able to provide more persuasive and sincere recommendations to customers and, thus, increase sales. Another way to train employees is to have new servers follow along the experienced ones and learn by watching. Identify your best servers, use them as trainers, and compensate them accordingly.
Providing Personal Recommendations. Teach your servers to not just recite the descriptions of menu items to guests, but provide guests with vivid and attractive depictions of the meals. Restaurant’s staff should have a detailed knowledge of the menu and should be able to offer personal recommendations to customers. Servers should use positive sentences and suggestive selling style in order to succeed in winning the sale. They can also use demonstration strategies to show off the food and drink items to guests. For instance, it is common in many restaurants to showcase desserts to customers, making it easier to sell them.
Asking Questions. A good server should be a good listener and provide detailed answers to guests’ questions. Good server should be genuinely interested in making sure the customer makes the right food choices. Guests also respond much better to sincere suggestions from servers. Attentive servers tend to generate higher sales and have a higher percentage of customers who order more, including add-ons, such as appetizers or desserts. Teach your servers to ask questions from customers, too, to help clarify customers’ wants and needs. Servers can break down the menu into categories, such as seafood, beef, chicken, pasta, to make it easier for the customer to select the right dish.
Selling add-on items. Make sure your servers are actively suggesting add-on items, such as appetizers, side dishes or desserts. Your waiters should be trained to naturally suggest your restaurant’s signature drinks or special bottles of wine, where appropriate. After the main meal is finished, servers should always suggest dessert menu items and dessert drinks.
Incentive Program. Create an incentive program that clearly defines the customer service levels you expect from your servers. An incentive program should reward employees who sell the most. One of the most common incentives is to provide extra commission to servers who sell non-entrée items, such as appetizers, side dishes, or desserts. You can also have internal sales competitions and reward employees for outstanding results.
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