Assisting Guests With Special Needs

Assisting Guests With Special Needs

For food and beverage establishments, customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance. Satisfied customers are the key to return business and a source of word-of-mouth advertisement. In both instances, the operation realizes increased revenues as a result of satisfied customers. In this endeavor, there are customers that will visit a food and beverage establishment that have special needs. These customers, like any other, should not only be treated with respect and courtesy, but their special needs should be accommodated.

Special needs accommodations should be spelled out in the restaurant SOP. Our restaurant operation manual is a good source for a restaurant manager to be able to develop their own special needs guidelines for customers. There are a number of areas that should be clearly outlined and addressed, with staff being fully aware and trained on these procedures.

Special needs for a food and beverage establishment would be any customer that needs attention from staff that exceeds normal parameters. This includes elderly customers, small/young children, and customers with disabilities. Some restaurants will also include customers with specific dietary needs or special requests in this category as well. Each type of special needs customer has procedures that are best suited to their care.

For example, with elderly customers, you will want to sit them in areas that have ample lighting and preferably quiet. If you have comfortable seating available, you will want to provide this as well. On the other hand, dealing with children requires a different approach. With children, it is courteous to actually speak to the child directly, but to confirm with the parents (preferably non-verbally or indirectly) on any orders that a child may place. With small children, it is also a good idea to make table snacks (crackers, bread, etc.) available as soon as possible as well.

What is apparent is that it is paramount that staff be aware of the differences that each category of special needs customer requires. Not only, as we have already mentioned, should these procedures be outlined in the restaurant SOP; but training procedures should be in place to make sure that staff are able to identify and provide needed services when required to do so. A restaurant manager is responsible to ensure that personnel are properly aware and trained in providing special needs customer service.

A restaurant manager should understand that the special needs of customers must be taken care of. The restaurant manager should convey this understanding to other staff members. Remember, these customers are as important as any other. Accommodating the needs of special needs customers will only serve to enhance the reputation of the quality service that a food and beverage establishment offers. Additionally, food and beverage operations will realize an increase in return business as a result of a practice that doesn’t require any additionally expense to provide. With proper planning and training, any food and beverage establishment institute these effective guidelines.
For further information regarding training or SOP guidelines for providing quality services to special needs customers, please review our ebooks on those subjects. Our restaurant training guide and restaurant operations manual are excellent resources for any restaurant manager.

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This article is contributed by Ehab Rashwan }}