Secrets of service: Invisible strategies to influence guest experience

During his tenure at New York City's Eleven Madison Park, Guidara solved this problem with a rather remarkable act: not waiting for the table to ask for the bill, but instead delivering it alongside an entire bottle of cognac, while telling the guest to help themselves. It gives the guest, Guidara explains, the feeling that they aren't being forced to leave, but they have the bill nonetheless.

Replicating this method might not be possible for most operators, but the ‘giving more, not less' approach to a very specific part of the hospitality experience is an example of how creative operators can be when it comes to reading and guiding their guests. Being able to pre-empt a diner or drinker's needs is a skill that is hard to define, but there are numerous practical methods that can be introduced into service to control a room.

Gather your intel

First thing's first: gathering information on your guests. In order to build these profiles, first impressions tell a manager or server plenty of useful information.

"It starts right by the door," explains Veronica Di Pietrantonio, co-founder of London's Viajante 87. "We're lucky because we have about two minutes from meeting a guest at the door to taking them down the stairs and to their table, so whoever's on the door can talk to them and find out as much as they can."

Indeed, the design of a restaurant or bar can play in your favour when it comes to gathering information. At Tommy Banks' Michelin-starred Black Swan at Oldstead in York, there are several steps before the guests enter its dining room where the team can read their vibe – and, in turn, notice how it will match the other guests dining that evening.

The on-site bedrooms mean that guests checking in for the night also have plenty of touchpoints with staff.

"This initial greeting is key," explains managing director of the Tommy Banks Group Matthew Lockwood. "We serve them a welcome drink of rhubarb kombucha and that is the first touchpoint where we get a feeling about what these guests are going to be like."

This is fed back to the team and by the time the guest has enjoyed snacks and drinks in the downstairs bar before dinner, the team upstairs have a rounded picture of that evening's service.

When this comes to regular customers, it's wise to make and log notes. "We try and understand the needs and requirements, and get to know our regular customers" explains founder of London's Maison François and restaurateur François O'Neill. "Things like, if they like to start with a glass of white wine or don't want to look at a wine menu at all. We make sure we have enough data and notes to incorporate into service."

Gathering information is one thing, but communicating it to the rest of your team ensures even more personalisation for guests. "Communication is really important when we're talking about initial interactions with guests," explains Mhairi Gate, assistant restaurant manager at Hawksmoor Edinburgh. "If I've made the first contact it is important to let the team around me know they've maybe had a hard day and need more time or space. The worst thing for a guest is if they have expressed themselves to one member of staff and they then have to repeat themselves to the next member of staff."

At the Black Swan and sister restaurant Roots York, despite both being different styles of dining experiences, the teams back of house are constantly recording their guests' preferences. At Roots, Lockwood explains, the team uses a service board to note anything that may help servers pre-empt the guests' needs (such as asking for their water not to be topped up); and at the Black Swan there is a similar system where front of house can leave notes based on their initial interaction with guests, so things like guests preferring to be quiet or those keen on wine can be shared with the team as they move upstairs for service.

Orchestrating the vibe

Creating an atmosphere each night with different personalities is also something that requires the ability to read each of your guests' energy levels. It's something Di Pietrantonio has mastered over her years hosting at some of London's best bars. For her, seating is important. "If you sit people the wrong way, that's it. There's no turning back," she says.

This sentiment is echoed by other operators. At the Black Swan, the layout of the seating in the upstairs dining room can change based on the vibes of the guests on any given evening. The staff also use seating to extinguish any uncomfortable situations too, moving guests downstairs for dessert if the table next to them is too loud or intruding on their personal space during a private evening.

At Gleneagles in Auchterarder, head of bars Michele Mariotti explains the tact with which he can create a convivial atmosphere at the bar: "One category of guest is the regular, who sits at the bar for a third of the year – you know they are going to be chatty. The other category of guests are solo travellers, who don't know the property and need a little bit more entertainment, so you either sit them tactically or in front of the bartender to reduce the bartender's steps of service. We also get a lot of couples – the couple dynamic can be quite difficult – so we tend to sit them in a slightly busier station so they can be part of the conversation but not the sole focus."

Pietro Collina, co-founder of Viajante 87, revels in having a solo diner or drinker to look after. "I see it as nothing but an opportunity because you can get a solo person having fun at a bar by introducing them to the person next to them. On Saturday I had a solo person who I introduced to a couple of people, and he ended up dancing with a group of seven for two hours."

O'Neill gives the example of two art gallery owners: they might not want to be sat right next to each other, but it could be nice to seat them so they can at least see and perhaps acknowledge each other.

Teachable moments

While some may think that being able to read guests is a natural skill, others say that to some extent it can be a teachable talent. When it comes to training there are ways in which certain steps of service can be put in place to make it easier for all members of staff – whether they find this skill natural or not – to have as best a chance as possible of getting it right.

At Hawksmoor, Gate explains the steps taken to make sure the bases are covered on every service, by each member of the team. "If we have someone new in a section, they shadow a head waiter. Then that flips and the waiter shadows the new person and that allows them to see their training in action," she explains. "When someone from a section leaves the table, I look at the reaction of the guests – you can tell by their expressions pretty quickly if it went well or not."

The staff at Viajante 87 need to earn informality, says Collina. "If you start with a professional attitude, it gives you all the power in the world to either be more informal if a natural relationship is happening, or more serious if someone is there on business and you touch tables here and there. Don't give yourself away right at the beginning."

At Maison François, the company operating manual covers its order of service from A to Z: "Every step on the journey is given in great detail," explains O'Neill. An example of the style of service is limiting "chit chat" (something that is echoed with the use of QR codes for payments to keep service speedy).

Trusting the team is important when it comes to guests who want more conversation with their server, however. "It's not always going to go to plan, but we trust our team to deliver that experience," he says.

Improvisation is key

While following steps of service builds a strong foundation, the magic is usually in the ability to improvise based on the signals or information your guests are giving you. Guidara and his chapter on ‘Improvisational hospitality' details the moment he served a table at Eleven Madison Park a hot dog he'd bought straight off a street vendor after overhearing a guest saying their only regret was leaving New York without having one (he tells the full story in his TedTalk). At Gleneagles, staff at the hotel's Century Bar have a discretionary budget they can use per guest if they feel like they want to make someone's experience a little bit more special. Mariotti gives an example of one of his bartenders having to deal with a potentially awkward situation in the American Bar: "We had three guests and one of them opened up the cocktail menu and vocalised that he couldn't afford to drink in here. The bartender overheard the conversation and when that guest ordered a glass of water, he instead served him a glass of Dom Pérignon on the house. The guest teared up a little – everyone who comes through our doors should feel welcome."

Finding your people

While all of these methods are ways of raising your chances of reading your guests and pre-empting their needs, it's also true that some people will be better than others. Gate refers to restaurateur Danny Meyer's ‘51%/49%' hiring principle: namely, that the aim is to have staff who deliver 51% emotional hospitality and 49% technical excellence. Those ‘51%s' will have five core emotional skills, says Meyer: optimistic warmth, intelligence, work ethic, self-awareness and empathy. Indeed, empathy is a trait that all operators cited as a key trait in staff who excel at reading guests.

For Lockwood, identifying those people in interviews can happen in the first couple of minutes "It's a skill that I think comes with someone's personality type. It's a desire to look after people. I've had it before when I've walked on to the floor and I know if something is wrong straight away – it's such an odd thing."

O'Neill sees benefits of having a mix of people: "Everyone has a different talent – some people read emotional situations better than others; some might speak a different language; on the whole I don't expect everyone to have the same sense as others and that's what makes it unique – you wouldn't want everyone to be the same."

And never underestimate the power of knowledge: if your team knows the boundaries in which to operate (or not), they will be more astute to the situations they might need to fix or issues they need to pre-empt. Reading a room may be a skill for some, but everyone can have the tools to perform it.

Tips from the floor

Two of east London's best bar hosts on some of the methods that give them the edge.

La'Mel Clarke, Seed Library, Shoreditch

It's really important to have other interests outside of work as it will influence the conversations you have with guests. It's about finding those pockets of opportunity through having thoughtful conversations that will turn someone's experience from really good to unbelievable.

We understand not everybody wants to know about cocktail techniques, so we have a tier system to filter that on a table-by-table basis.

At the start of a sitting I like to fill the heart of the room first – putting people in places where they can see the bar, see what's happening. Then when people come in they can see people are already in the room. The best way to find out more about my guests without seeming forced is having really basic conversations, seeing what information they want to present and share and then deconstructing and seeing if there is any fun I can have with that information.

Keila Urzaiz de Calignon, Satan's Whiskers, Bethnal Green

Steps of service are real – you need to know these before you can go rogue.

Not always following the seating allocation system means I can seat people more intuitively.

Using the menu as a conversation starter is a way to gauge whether a table wants to engage or not. If people want to interact, they'll be proactive about it.

The size and design of a space makes a big difference when being able to have an eye on all of your tables. As we have a small venue, it means I have more control over what's happening.

Because of the layout of our bar, I can walk in circles around the floor easily and keep a regular eye on all the tables.