Teach Employees to Problem Solve for Better Customer Service

Restaurant managers often ask me how to deal with employees who are “not good at problem solving.” These employees are usually servers, hosts or other front-end staff who deal a lot with customers as part of their work. If a customer comes to an employee with an unexpected or unusual request, it is up to that employee to both make the customer happy and work within his or her scope of authority.

So when restaurant managers ask me this question, I always wonder: “How many problems come up that truly haven’t already been solved before? Why don’t your employees have more ready-made solutions to use – at least for the problems that recur on a regular basis – so they don’t have to problem-solve on the fly?”

Why would you want employees on the front lines to make important decisions on the basis of their own judgment, if they could instead rely on the accumulated experience of the business and the long-term employees who have worked there?

Show me any employee who is…