Word Of the Week #532: Recognition
October 16, 2014 by Susan Clarke
Recognition – acceptance of an individual as being entitled to consideration or attention.
How many times have you entered a business and not been acknowledged? How does it feel to be ignored? How long is “too long” to make a guest, member, customer or client wait to be served?
I was in Florida last week for the Club Managers Association and thought this would be a good time to revisit my 7 Simple Steps of Service. And #1 is recognition. If you want to be memorable and develop long lasting relationships, you need to recognize and pay attention to all of the people you come in contact with.
First, I suggest you determine how many seconds it should take to recognize your customers, guests, members and clients. When I worked for Houlihan’s back in the 70’s, it was stressed in all of our training the we were to recognize our guests within one minute. Today I would say that is too long! So what is a realistic expectation to strive for? 30 seconds?
Restaurant in Cancun
And secondly, you need to talk about it with your staff so they understand the importance of recognition. The first person your guests, customers, members or clients come in contact with will set the tone of their experience. I believe the quicker we are to recognize people the more positive that experience will be.
I titled my book, “The FUN-Damental Secrets of Service: How to have fun and make your customers feel good about spending their money” because I believe that if you make people feel good about doing business with you they will come back, spend more money, and tell everyone else about you. Positive word of mouth is essential for success in any business. And I am sure you have heard that people will tell more people about a bad experience than a good one!
This week’s focus is on recognition. How much attention are you giving the people that you come in contact with? How many seconds is too long to wait to be served? How does it make you feel when you are recognized immediately?
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