Whether customers have a great experience is not just about the strength of your drinks offer. Ensuring staff deliver great service can make sure customers leave your pub already planning to return.
We've all had an experience as customers when we've left saying "I thought it was going to be really good from the menu, but…" Over-promising and under-delivering can leave people disappointed and unlikely to come back.
The aim should always be to deliver a consistent experience that embodies whatever is special or unique about your business. In essence, to deliver the 'brand'.
This doesn't necessarily mean snazzy logos and big advertising campaigns, just that customers should feel that every element of an pub - from its menus to the back-bar - are working in harmony to deliver a consistent message to both new and existing customers.
How customers experience your 'brand' can have a powerful influence on whether they return to your outlet. One of the biggest influences in the licensed trade is its public 'face' - the staff.
All too often, the family-friendly pub - with a sullen teenager taking food orders and wincing at a baby crying - couldn't be further from the 'friendly and accommodating staff' promised on the website.
Or the sophisticated gastropub with a waitress who clearly doesn't know her chardonnay from her shiraz. Any gap between the promised brand and its delivery by staff will inevitably leave customers uneasy and less likely to return or to recommend you to their friends and family.
To see how your business measures up, try summarising how you'd like to be perceived by your customers in a few emotive words such as 'welcoming', 'part of the community', 'sophisticated', 'friendly' or 'relaxed'. Then see if you could apply the same adjectives to your staff and how they present themselves.
Bit of a mismatch? Don't panic, there are lots of simple and low-cost solutions that can help ensure that your team really are 'living the brand'.
Start by thinking about your ideal customer experience. How would your customers be greeted? What would good service look and sound like? How would staff deal with difficult customers?
When your staff really are 'living the brand', you can feel confident that you are one step closer to making sure your customers leave already planning to come back.
Training
Make it clear in job descriptions, reviews, appraisals and staff meetings what is expected of your team.
Consider using role-play in training sessions, acting out possible interactions between customers and staff and discussing key learnings from the exercise.
This isn't a one-off - your team will need regular reminders to keep them on track. Try written prompts by the till or posters in the staff room.
Appearance
Research suggests that within 90 seconds of meeting someone we form an opinion about them mainly based on appearance. Even if what that person is saying seems to contradict their appearance, we don't hear it because what we see is much stronger.
Review your staff uniform or dress code to ensure it is sending out the right message.
It might also be worth formalising your policy on piercings, make-up, jewellery and so on - which of course has health and safety implications as well as being an important factor in how your staff present themselves.
Carrots as well as sticks
Once your team are clear about what is expected of them in terms of delivering the public face of your business, it's a good idea to put some kind of incentive scheme in place to motivate them to consistently deliver.
Perhaps you could create a monthly 'hero' award for the team member who has gone furthest to deliver a great customer experience. Or even consider employing a local market research agency to 'mystery shop' your outlet regularly, with rewards for staff who meet certain criteria - such as delivering a warm and friendly greeting to customers as they enter your pub.
Industry research shows that tangible, attainable rewards work best for staff incentives. They might include CDs, high street gift vouchers or even closing time pizzas for the whole team. They also go a long way towards rousing morale.
Of course, there is a fine line between incentivising and antagonising staff - so make sure that you're practising what you preach and presenting yourself appropriately!
Recruitment
Recruiting the right people in the first place makes delivering a great customer experience much easier. It's well worth sitting down to define desirable personality traits and aptitudes for staff that fit well with your 'brand' so you can use them as recruitment criteria for the future.
Brand champions
If you're ready to take things a stage further consider creating a 'brand champion' role among your team. Make a key staff member responsible for ensuring that your brand - in the case of pubs, what it is about the offer that make your customers' experience special - is being delivered consistently throughout your outlet, and that the quality of this delivery is constantly monitored and improved.
These brand champions might be tasked with new starter inductions, checking the menus are looking clean and fresh or even liaising with local community groups to create charity events for the pub.
Empowering someone to take responsibility for managing your brand on a day-to-day basis could result in a more consistent feel to your pub as well as generating a greater sense of team ownership.
Identifying bright and promising staff and adding brand champion to their role could also be seen as an investment by you in their development.
Gemma Teed is a strategic planner at marketing communications agency Brahm