Service Sells

Posted on May 15, 2012

How to boost your bottom line with a smile.

By: Sophie Talbot

I was half-watching one of my guilty pleasures, “Undercover Boss”, last night and the CEO of a window treatment company was shadowing a technician who was doing an installation. This technician was amazing and went above and beyond to improve the customer experience. It got me thinking… I should look at that company and see what they have to offer. (This is particularly impressive as I was also reviewing and answering emails at the time, so I was not paying my full attention to the TV.)

My mind continued on to ponder about a couple of great meals I have eaten recently. It wasn’t just the food that was great, it was the server that contributed to me ending up spending more and having a great time.

Back in the days, when I was a Junior Assistant Manager for a hotel, my GM was a real industry Pro. He could charm the birds out of the trees, and he always had smiling on his must-do list. If you weren’t smiling while working you were in trouble. Your day would only get worse if there was a light bulb out in a public area that you hadn’t reported to maintenance to be replaced. Read More →

Posted in CRM Strategy, Enterprise Management, Hotels and Resorts, What's New in Technology | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

“The UItimate ‘Booking’ Machine”

Posted on May 10, 2012

Have you ever thought about booking a hotel room from your car? More precisely, your car booking your travel for you?  Check out the video below on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology MICROS prepared together with BMW, Assa Abloy/Vincard and Holiday Inn. This video demonstrates what is possible when leading technology players directly connect their solutions to interact seamlessly. Think car navigation systems, Internet, NFC, hotel systems, door locks, mobile devices/car keys or mobile NFC phones and more. This video showcase is based on a real set up! It’s not fake! There are no other technology players!

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What do you think about this scenario? Would you be willing to adapt  operational check-in procedures to provide your guests added convenience and increased mobility ?

Posted in What's New in Technology | Tagged | 1 Comment

Think Local First DC Seminar on Ingredients for Success – Opening a Restaurant in DC Part II

Posted on May 10, 2012

By: David Smelson  

Part II of Ingredients for Success – Opening a Restaurant in DC
Where to open your restaurant and tips on getting it financed.
Click here for Part I
 
There was some great info put forth by the panelists regarding how to decide WHERE to put your resaturant. Some of it is below.Don’t choose a location based on the proximity to your house.You can choose to work with a broker. They have done a lot of the homework below already and are experienced, but you have to keep in mind that they make money regardless of the type of deal they’ve worked out for you.Choosing a location in an up and coming neighborhood may be a bargain as far as rent is concerned, but if you do the math and consider foot-traffic and being busy during the week vs. only being full on Friday and Saturday nights you may find it to your advantage to choose a location in a higher rent area. Look at your business plan and your estimated sales per seat. Can you make it work if you’re less than full all the time? Read More →
Posted in What's New in Technology | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Believing in Your Products Means: Using them Yourself!

Posted on May 8, 2012

By: Stefanie Piennak, Product Manager of Sales & Catering and Sales Force Automation

If I owned, managed, or worked for a company that, let’s say, manufactured cars, would I go out and buy my next car from a competitor? Of course not! I would go for my ‘own’ product for multiple reasons. I know how it works. I know its quality. I have the right people to talk to at hand if something does happen to go out of order or I need something changed. And I see my sales team driving it.

Does this principle apply to software applications? It certainly does! Case in point: The MICROS-Fidelio Asia-Pacific team adapted the OPERA Sales & Catering and OPERA BI applications in an amazing way to manage MICROS customers, all sales processes and quotes, and regional sales statistic reporting across more than 15 different offices in Asia-Pacific. Read More →

Posted in CRM Strategy, Hotels and Resorts, What's New in Technology | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Customer Centric Ecosystem

Posted on May 2, 2012

By: Ed Rothenberg

I’ve written three blogs for MICROS in the past few months. The first was on turning a restaurant customer into an invited guest, the second was on the “Imopadlet” … a whimsical perspective on mobile and consumer devices within the restaurant space. The third was on table management solutions for managing the customer experience at the hostess stand. The solutions I like to write and talk about are solutions that help grow guest counts and guest traffic. Many of my fellow bloggers at MICROS feel the same way, and I recommend you check out some of their excellent posts on Smartphone Payments, Social Media, Mobility, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Information Systems, Loyalty Programs. This is something we are passionate about here at MICROS, and all of these blogs are good reads and I recommend you check them out.

 What we at MICROS are writing about is the overall shift in the marketplace towards Read More →

Posted in CRM Strategy | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Business Intelligence: How Intelligent is it?

Posted on April 26, 2012

By: Chris Adams, Hotel Management Expert

It is amazing how every hotel seems to reinvent the wheel when it comes to reporting. In my 5 years installing our applications I have seen 100 different ways of showing the same information, be it daily flash reports, month-end reports or production reports. What was the same for all these customers however was that the information HAD to be shown in a certain format. Funnily enough, the format seemed to change with every change of GM – a new GM meant a new-look flash report with new names for the same metrics.

What use are these reports though? Often they are compiled in a way that can be manipulated, the data comes too late to do anything useful with and it is often so summarised that delving deeper requires printing a whole new set of reports to answer the ‘why’ questions. The simple answer to resolve this has often been to implement a ‘business intelligence’ solution which will provide the right data to the right people in the right format at the right time – but is it really that easy? Read More →

Posted in What's New in Technology | 3 Comments

Think Local, First DC Seminar on Ingredients for Success – Opening a Restaurant in DC Part 1

Posted on April 24, 2012

By: David Smelson

Ever think about opening your own restaurant?  I have worked with many restaurants as they were trying to open but have never had the opportunity to see what it takes to get through the parts I wasn’t involved in.  Think Local DC put together a seminar with a panel of local entrepreneurs to discuss their experiences and offer advice about how to make it happen from concept to opening your doors and beyond.  This post will be presented in several parts as there is a lot of information to impart. Read More →

Posted in Restaurant | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Using POS Table Layout screens – “A picture paints a thousand words”

Posted on April 19, 2012

By: Peter Goodwin, Restaurant Operations Strategy Expert

The well-worn saying “A picture paints a thousand words”, is so true when it comes to understanding what is going on, on the restaurant floor.  The ability to easily see where each table is at in their meal, and communicate this to floor staff, makes an enormous difference to operational efficiency and the service experience for the patron.  Read More →

Posted in Restaurant | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

What’s In A Name?

Posted on April 17, 2012

By:  Mike Provost

Like so many of us, I receive quite a few regular mailings, both at home and in the office.  Increasingly, those mailings arrive in electronic form, rather than by print, but no matter the media, they seem to share one common problem:  Me… or rather, what or who the senders believe me to be.

For example, I receive a couple of monthly trade magazines here in the office.  One of them, I’ve received here for years, since I was a Product Specialist with OPERA V5 Development.  Apparently, when adding me to their database, someone made a small typo and listed my title as “Sr. Produce Specialist”.  This was of course, not a huge deal to me, and I found it rather amusing.  Each year, when the subscription renewal form came due, I made the change to the correct title and sent it in.  However, for years I still received the magazine as “Mike Provost – Sr. Produce Specialist – MICROS Systems, Inc”. Now, I know that MICROS has a diverse portfolio of solutions that we provide for the Hospitality Industry, but to my knowledge, Greengrocer is not yet one of them (at least not for the actual leafy green items;  MICROS-Retail has some really cool solutions for pretty much everything else – check them out at http://www.micros-retail.com). Read More →

Posted in Enterprise Management, Hotels and Resorts, What's New in Technology | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Kitchen Display Systems; How do they Work in a Table Service Environment?

Posted on April 12, 2012

By: Peter Goodwin

Whilst commonly used in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) market to improve speed of service and control waste, the Kitchen Display System (KDS) can also improve the quality of service in cafes and restaurants.

Here are some features and benefits of the KDS when implemented in a table service environment. Read More →

Posted in Restaurant | Tagged , | 1 Comment