The importance of customer service was the central focus of SLTN’s latest event, In Conversation with SLTN: The Art of Service.
The event, held last month at Heineken UK’s Edinburgh headquarters on St Andrew Square, was sponsored by both Heineken UK and Marie Brizard.
Bar staff and operators in attendance heard from three expert speakers in the field of service: multi award-winning bartender and mixologist Mal Spence of The Douglas Hotel on Arran, Heineken UK’s customer experience director, Lynsey Reid, and Shaun McCarron, co-owner of Edinburgh eateries The Little Chartroom, Eleanore and Ardfern.
Speaking to the differences between service in a standalone bar and a bar located within a hotel, where the bar is just one point of contact with a customer, Mal said: “When I was behind a cocktail bar it was very ego-driven. Everything was about it being my bar, my drink, my tunes, my atmosphere, my scene.
“Being in a hotel has made me realise that it’s not my drink, it’s not my bar, it’s the guest’s drink, it’s the guest’s bar. Being able to remove myself from that kind of, I don’t want to say arrogant, but ego-driven mindset has allowed me to really open up and start to understand service in a more generalised way.”
Customer service has become an increasingly important part of Heineken UK’s business in recent years, and Lynsey said the process of setting up the company’s customer experience department has meant ‘constantly having to rewire how we think about things’.
“The creation of the customer experience department was recognition that we could only win if our customers are winning, and for our customers to win we really needed to understand how they tick, what they needed, how it felt to be a customer, and only when you understood that could you build plans to help them win and, subsequently, for us to win, and the customer experience department was born on that premise.”
Customer research conducted by the company identified various areas for improvement – often to the surprise of the team.
“I remember when I took over the customer experience team, sitting in rooms, thinking about the silver bullet that’s really going to move the dial, going from poor (customer satisfaction scores) to the positive ones we have today.
“And it’s never the big thing you think it is. It’s the small, we call them tiny, noticeable moments. There’s some great examples of where we’ve done very little but it’s had a huge impact.”
And Shaun reckoned empowering staff has had a hugely positive impact on customer service at he and wife Roberta’s three restaurants.
“When the chefs are working on new dishes they bring them to the entire team to give their feedback,” he said. “Some of the feedback will be taken on board, some won’t, but the entire team feel like they’re very much part of the process and part of this restaurant’s journey, from the produce arriving to getting it on the plate. Even if, like myself, you can’t cook to save your life.”
