Steps to Restaurant Service
A training course to teach servers the basic steps to service and best practices used at Seaside Grill resulting in uniform service and training rooted in best practices that will increase customer satisfaction as well as server and business success.
Tools Used in Development: Articulate Rise, Canva, Camtasia, PowerPoint, Google Suite
My Role: Instructional Designer, SME
Client: Seaside Grill (Fictional Client)
This eLearning course was developed as a portfolio piece.
Collaborators: IDOL Courses Academy Members
FICTIONAL CASE STUDY
Context: Seaside Grill is a popular restaurant with both locals and tourists due to its reputation for offering delicious seafood, a fun atmosphere and exceptional service. Seaside Grill is expanding and will open two new restaurants soon. With the expansion, Seaside Grill will be hiring many new servers. Seaside Grill wants to ensure that the same exceptional service is offered at all restaurants.
Challenges: Managers at Seaside Grill recently reported an increased number of complaints from mentor servers and questions from new servers regarding expectations when serving. Managers have also noted a slight (10%) increase in guest complaints regarding service. To investigate further, a survey was given to all servers about sequence of service and best practice expectations. Survey results show that performance gap exists due to lack of knowledge of the basic steps to service and best practices that servers are expected to follow as outlined by the Seaside Grill Handbook. Due to the lack of knowledge by mentor servers, skills of all servers are now lax and quality of service is regressing. Training of new hires is not uniform resulting in confusion and hindrance of server skills amongst new servers. Recent hires say that knowledge of server expectations regarding steps to service and best practices before working live in the restaurant alongside a mentor server would be helpful to them in developing skills that meet expectations.
Solutions: This training program’s purpose is to teach servers the basic steps to service and best practices used at Seaside Grill to:
ensure uniform service from all servers at Seaside Grill.
provide uniform mentor-training of new servers.
prepare newly hired servers for the next step of training which is to work with a mentor server live in the restaurant.
Course Review: Surveys, assessments and observations will be conducted following Kirckpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation as outlined below.
Level 1 (Reaction): A short course survey is offered for learners to rate the effectiveness of the course, reflect on their take-aways, and give feedback.
Level 2 (Learning): A 15 question final quiz assessment will be given to measure if the learner has acquired the knowledge and skills of focus with respect to Steps to Restaurant Service.
Level 3 (Behavior):
Seaside Grill managers will observe and document staff behaviors and monitor new server training.
Another survey will be given in 4-6 weeks from completion of the course to better assess application of content learned.
Managers will record data on customer complaints.
Level 4 (Results): Results will be reviewed on the Overall Performance Objective/Business Goal deadline to assess effectiveness of the
training course.