Customer Service

Catering institutes in India vie with each other to offer the latest in education to students, even if courses are dated in the late vestiges of the last century. The mushrooming of institutes has led a piquant situation in which there are a number of catering personnel coming out of the institutes and marching straight into the arms of recruitment agencies who promise the skies to the bright-eyed aspirants.

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Most training and education programs miss out on some important factors of the business. The trainee could have the right info about the right way to serve wine and lay the table but it is important to develop his attitude to the job that will determine whether the training is put to practice if at all.

This lack of awareness is confined not only to the innocent students and trainees but also to the owners and managers of food outlets. Burdened with the practical aspects of building sales and marketing inputs, the nitty-gritty of running the restaurant business is often taken for granted.

Ask the average restaurateur how important customer service is to business, and one usually gets a strong positive response. However on probing further the response to the question- "Do you objectively measure customer your service in any way?" normally elicits a negative response. For example on asking if they have put into place any special recruitment or training systems to ensure customer service delivery the puzzled and quizzical response explains it all.

The Key