We're doing our industry no service at all

Wherever we work, whatever job we do and however much we charge for our food, work or product, there is no escaping the fact that we all work in the service industry.

Unfortunately, the word "service" frequently seems to be forgotten, or else it is dismissed as something that belongs to bygone years.

For some people in the industry, the very idea of "going into service" has connotations of a life below stairs where one eked out an existence at the beck and call of the head housekeeper or butler, having to respond instantly to their whims and vagaries of mood.

It does not strike them that, as they work in the hospitality industry, they are also "in service". They feel that it is a term more accurately applied to the servant of yesteryear who spent her day scrubbing floors or blacking stoves.

Reality

But the reality is that we are all in service and no one element of our industry can consider itself to be superior to another on this score. No matter what our position, we all have a contact point and we are all accountable. For a contract caterer, it could be the managing director of a client company or the man buying a can of soft drink at an outside event.

However, we all have the opportunity to promote our industry as a fun environment in which to work and the chance to create an enjoyable experience for our customers. It has a training record and levels of achievement of which we can be proud.

I am prompted to make this call for improved attitudes to service because some of the larger, company-owned units seem to have lost the desire to provide true service to customers.

Their staff seem to be insulated by the feeling that their salary is paid every month regardless of the performance of the hotel or the standard of service that is provided.

A recent experience at a local four-star hotel owned by a national chain highlighted this problem for me.

A request to one of the three bar staff for toast and preserves was met with the response that it would take at least 15 minutes before it could be dealt with, as they were going to a meeting. There was no offer to relay the order to another department. There was no apology and no concern expressed that they were unable to help.

At the same time, one of our chefs was collecting coffee from a buffet area, where they were using coffee flasks with the tops removed. Needless to say, the coffee was lukewarm. Among our group, the reputation of the hotel in question slipped still further.

Shabby treatment

We were present as exhibitors at a wedding fair held in the hotel. How many of those standholders will have felt well disposed toward the hotel after such shabby treatment? Very few, I suspect.

What a missed opportunity for the hotel which, with a little sparkling service, could have had 120 or so exhibitors extolling the virtues of the venue to the 1,500 members of the public who came to peruse our stands.

I appreciate that there are customers who may be pedantic, inconvenient or just plain awkward, but we should learn to deal with these situations and we should never forget that we are part of the service industry and are therefore there to serve them.

Remember, we are also part of the entertainment industry - let's make the most of it and look as if we enjoy it.

I certainly do. I have a fantastic time in this industry and it saddens me when I hear of school leavers considering a career in hospitality because they can't get into anything else. They view it as a last resort. If they enter the industry with that attitude, it doesn't bode well for their approach to customers.