Bar Service and Business Part 5

Customers are served and happy.  Customer area is clean and tidy.  Your area is spotless (of course).  Glassware/tools/customer “fill-in forms” all stocked and in a place you can find them.  Next thing to do is…

Part 5 – Keep on top of stock

Arguably – and it could depend on the type of business you are in – the last step I wrote about (Keep on top of glassware) and this one are interchangeable.  Most of the pubs/bars I worked in my life, the glassware was more important than the bottle stock in the fridge, but if you have a place with no products on tap for example, this could be a case for this step taking precedence… I’m easy with that… you go for it.

Again though, how does this relate to business?

Well, quite simply, you cannot sell what a customer can’t see.  And sales are important… aren’t they?

I can think of MANY occasions where I have walked into a retail premises, stopped, looked around, and wondered “Is this the whole range of what they sell?” or “How does this work? What is the process here?”  Or even worse “Do I know the price I will be paying for this product/service when I get to the counter?”

Back to the bar situation – if you let your bottle stocks run down and the customer can’t see alternatives to tap products, or they just want a specific product you might have in your fridge and it’s not visible, they may settle for a product they don’t like as much and have a sub-par experience.  You happy for that to happen if you ran the business?

We have a food outlet near where I work.  It’s only a small place, so naturally the owners are worried about wastage costs, but consequently there seems to never really be anything on the shelf or in the food warmer.  I don’t like going there.  I never know when I walk through the door if there is going to be something I will want to eat, or possibly more importantly, SHOULD be eating.  I would rather go a bit further down the road to the bakery with shelves seemingly groaning with options.

I went to the above-mentioned outlet a while back, and realised there were no sandwiches – they do quite nice sandwiches but I’ve only ever really seen a maximum of 8 in the cabinet at any one time anyway.  In a slightly frustrated tone I succumbed to a little whinge about the situation.  The owner overheard me and informed me that they could make one up fresh for me.  Ummmmm… OK!  Far better option… but considering I’d been through their doors quite a few times and wasn’t even aware this was an option speaks volumes.

A process to supply a customer with your stock that might not be readily visible, is as important as the sellable stock itself.  Go into a Yoghurt Story shop and you will see what I mean… if the customer can’t see that there is a process to obtain what they want within a few seconds of walking into your shop, OR browsing your website, they will go somewhere else.  You have to make it obvious and fool-proof.

So, go and stock your shelves.  Have a look at your shop-front, the inside of your store, and your website through the eyes of a customer and make sure what you provide is front-and-centre, unobscured, and understandable by a 5yr old.

Two more steps to go in this series… catch you next week!