Dear All,

as you propably know i am working in a chain of restaurants. There are 50 of them in my country and i am the QAM in the company.

I would like to read your comments or your help concerning the way i handle some KPI's in all restaurants.

First i have to say that the majority of the restaurants are "dine in style. The minority is only for "take out" and "delivery".

I have gathered from January 2001 all the quality problems that our phone center received for each restaurant for each month for each day (caution : these problems come ONLY from "take out" or "delivery" customers). We do not have written complaints from our "dine in" customers cause the problem is solved on site immediatelly.

Then i have gathered the "guest checks" per month for all 3 categories from January 2001 until now. So the rest is easy.

If for example the delivery orders are 2424 for a month and at the same month the take out orders are 1030 and the quality problems are 4, the KPI for that store (concerning quality problems) is [100 X 4 / (2424+1030)] = 0,12%. I did that for each month from January 2001 until June 2004 (42 months). So i summed up all the monthly KPI's and divided by 42. So for each store there was a KPI actually showing the percentage of quality problems (average).

I hope i explained it well. The point is : am i walking the right way? Is there any trap i am caught in? Can anybody tell me if my thought is OK ? If not what should i use in order to express the performance of a restaurant using its quality problems? Any thoughts , points, or help will be highly appreciated!

Thank you inadvance for your time! :)

I have gathered from January 2001 all the quality problems that our phone center received for each restaurant for each month for each day (caution : these problems come ONLY from "take out" or "delivery" customers). We do not have written complaints from our "dine in" customers cause the problem is solved on site immediatelly.

One trap I see is by ignoring the tally of complaints in dine-in, you are missing the potential for improvement (by implementing "preventive action") based on an analysis of dine-in problems (the majority of your locations.)

Essentially what you tell us is that all quality issues in dine-in restaurants expend time and money in "repair of nonconforming product or service" without ever being accountable to the organization for how many complaints or their root causes (tailor made situation for insider fraud, by the way.)

In my experience, "solving restaurant complaints on site" involves discounting the check up to 100% or replacing the wrong (nonconforming) order with the correct order (the wrong order can rarely be sold at retail.) Typically, a restaurant must sell 3 meals just to break even on one meal spoiled or given away.

Since the dine-ins are the majority of the business, I'd want to concentrate my efficiencies there. You can't be more efficient if you don't know what your losses from poor quality are.

First i have to say that the majority of the restaurants are "dine in style. The minority is only for "take out" and "delivery".

I have gathered from January 2001 all the quality problems that our phone center received for each restaurant for each month for each day (caution : these problems come ONLY from "take out" or "delivery" customers). We do not have written complaints from our "dine in" customers cause the problem is solved on site immediatelly.

The problems that are solved on site are “correction”. This is not Corrective action or Preventive action. I agree with WES. Dine in problems should have been collected with more details. Given the fact from your posting..

“ First i have to say that the majority of the restaurants are "dine in style. The minority is only for "take out" and "delivery".

:topic: Iam not a huge restaurant fan. Iam using a Logic that some one would dine in first to assess the Quality before take out? Or other way around? Restaurant lovers ..jump in..

If this hypothesis is correct, probably, if the customers are dissatisfied due to bad dine in experience, they will not return the business for take out as well.

I appreciate that you have solid 42 month of data for arriving at your metrics. But Iam concerned that you don’t have similar data for “dine-in”.

Your metric is currently at a 30,000 foot level. But you need further refinement to do anything useful with the metric.
Example:
You may want to Create categories of probable customer issues as: Quality, Quantity, Slow delivery, service (lack of response) , Cost, etc. Define those categories for consistency. Start categorizing the past 42 month issues into these slots and create a Pareto. Get the Top runner, perform fishbone and so on.

You may want to also trend the data of the “30,000” foot level metric over the past 42 months and see if there any trends, out of control situation and any special causes can be identified? (Change of head chef, Management, high labour turnover..??)

With due respect, I find your KPI reactive. i.e You will know the performance only after an issue has happened. This is also required but not the only one you should monitor.
You may want to identify Proactive KPIs ? Identify the most important features that matter the Customer – dine, takeout and find the CTQs (Critical Quality Characteristics) and CTPs (Critical to Process).

By controlling these characteristics and Parameters, you will know “proactively” even before problems happen. I already see a potential Continual improvement project ahead of you..I would imagine that you are already working on the above mentioned.Nothing New..just good old Quality 101 :)
Good luck,
Govind.

Good points, Govind and Wes.

vasilist - First, what are your current KPIs?

It might be interesting to make a list of potential measureables particularly with respect to chains.

I've known a lot of people who owned or worked in restaurants. I have a close involvement with one now. One this 'low' level ( < 3 'stores'), general public stores it's pretty much internal costs such as food, drinks, etc. The owner or manager typically has a good idea how they're doing by repeat customers and knowing their core customers because they're closely involved with it. That's not to say there aren't problem owners, per se. I'm watching a drama unfold in one store where the 4 people who founded it fell out on a 2 x 2 basis - mostly over how customers and employees (!) are treated. But that's a long story. One thing I have found over the years is a lot of a bar or restaurant is in large part the personality of the owner. But that has to do mostly with customer satisfaction.

Anyway, back to chains. What Key Performance Indicators can we define for individual stores?

1. Food sales
2. Liquor sales
3. Customer Satisfaction
a. Food on time
b. Food cold
c. Taste complaint
d. Raised prices and now they're too high

But as importantly, what methodologies could one use in a restaurant to identify/record the measureable/attribute and collect the data? Some data you can get right from the register such as breakdowns of food vs. liquor vs. whatever, what's being ordered most, and a lot of other financial and general information. Seems customer satisfaction, not unsurprisingly, will be the most difficult.

I know each of these will be different for each measureable/attribute.

Could be an interesting thread.

Hi,

Quality is end result of variosu activities. I think your KPI must involve
1. Customer Satisaction Index.
2. Employee Comptence Index. : a measure of training given to staff .
3. A QA score to check whether the mise -en place is right for the restaurant. I find that restaurants have poor service because lack of resources given to the service staff to do their job.

Finally, I think KPI is not enough. An action plan needs to be made to remove or prevent lack of quality.

This is an interesting way of verifying customer satisfaction at a restaurant.
I saw this methodology in a restaurant in Brasil.
When I saw it the first thing that occurred to me, was that human mind is in fact brilliant!
It worked approximately this way:
After the client has paid his bill, the waiter gave him 5 small plastic balls (1 cm diameter), and explains the client that they are for him to give his opinion on the service of the restaurant. That was to be done by the client himself on his way out.
So, when we go in direction to the door to leave the restaurant, there were five points in which our opinion was required.
The quality of the food,
Time it took to be served,
The way the waiter treated us,
The cleaning of the restaurant
The fair price for the meal
What did we have to do?
In each of the five spots we must put one of the small balls in a hole. There were 5 different holes in each spot (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Medium and Bad).

The main thing at this method was that each hole was made along the wall (the balls that were putted there are going to be one over the other in a thin vertical line), and it was covered with a transparent plastic material.
So we had a histogram made by us, for each subject the restaurant wanted to analyze.
This allows also that every client could see the “on-line” classification on each subject.

It was brilliant (much better that my description of the process)!

The main thing at this method was that each hole was made along the wall (the balls that were putted there are going to be one over the other in a thin vertical line), and it was covered with a transparent plastic material.
So we had a histogram made by us, for each subject the restaurant wanted to analyze.
This allows also that every client could see the “on-line” classification on each subject.



A neat sounding idea. One thing to watch out for is that by showing the customer the previous results PRIOR to them depositing their ball you could be influencing how they vote. Note for example the polls here on the Cove - you only see the others' votes AFTER you vote.

Has anyone seen a KPI on roach droppings per 100 square centimeters?

Or a 5S styled scoring system?

One thing I don't really see addressed is the size of the restaurant. As some of you know I have an interest in restaurants but I've only been exposed to small places. One has 142 seating / 200 capacity and the other is 183 seating / 300 capacity (capacity is based upon square footage). Both are run by a fellow who knows through experience what to measure. Contrast that to a chain with, oh, say 200 'outlets'.

So far, I'm assuming the discussion is mainly applicable to chain restaurants. Not that the metrics would all be different, but there are probably some differences. Also, in chains, I wonder what 'local' metrics there may be that don't get passed up the line to 'corporate' for whatever reason.

Just some thoughts.

OK - That was funny, but this is a good thread so let's keep it 'serious'.


Sorry, I was being serious.

While the concept of KPIs in a restaurant is good, it comes down to what the restaurant is willing to do with the information.

If they want is information on the service and food (i.e., customer relations), most use comment cards with topics that have already been mentioned.

Unfortunately, I don't know if restaurants delve deeper to their internal metrics (i.e, their actual processes) as a means to help explain why customer's make the comments they do.

Time to answer phone
Reservation overbookings
Inspection scores (Toronto has an inspection system for restaurants)
Turn-over
Time from order entry to order readiness
Supply shortages ("I'm sorry, sir, we have no more of our Soup of the Day")
Etc.

While the concept of KPIs in a restaurant is good, it comes down to what the restaurant is willing to do with the information.

If they want is information on the service and food (i.e., customer relations), most use comment cards with topics that have already been mentioned.

Unfortunately, I don't know if restaurants delve deeper to their internal metrics (i.e, their actual processes) as a means to help explain why customer's make the comments they do.

Time to answer phone
Reservation overbookings
Inspection scores (Toronto has an inspection system for restaurants)
Turn-over
Time from order entry to order readiness
Supply shortages ("I'm sorry, sir, we have no more of our Soup of the Day")
Etc.


RC, I have filled out a couple of cards over the years, but I would imagine that the number of cards sent in/number of customers ratio would be very low. The neat thing about this example is that just about every customer would participate - its proactive. Taking this even further, how about bells, whistles, and lights that ring, toot, and flash when the survey is completed?

Of course there is still the problem you mentioned about the answers not being specific.

RC, I have filled out a couple of cards over the years, but I would imagine that the number of cards sent in/number of customers ratio would be very low. The neat thing about this example is that just about every customer would participate - its proactive. Taking this even further, how about bells, whistles, and lights that ring, toot, and flash when the survey is completed?

Or how about some incentive to fill in a survey? Most of us know that surveys tend to be filled in only due to an emotional response - loved it or hated it. Providing some incentive to fill in a feedback card might provide some other comments not normally heard...an incentive such as 10% off next meal at the restaurant. The restaurant gets feedback and the customer gets to come back (if they so choose).

I will admit that I was once so distraught at my meal at a restaurant, I filled in the comment card in lipstick. The pen had just enough ink in it for me to sign the receipt and then died...just one of the many horrible experiences during this dining moment.

At the same time, I recently completed an online feedback session for the Crowne Plaza at Times Square...all excellent feedback. I couldn't gush enough about most of my stay at this hotel (only down side was the lack of solid water pressure on the 43rd floor). But the people who worked there deserved mentioning and I was aware enough to find their names and mention them specifically in my letter.

Or how about some incentive to fill in a survey? Most of us know that surveys tend to be filled in only due to an emotional response - loved it or hated it. Providing some incentive to fill in a feedback card might provide some other comments not normally heard...an incentive such as 10% off next meal at the restaurant. The restaurant gets feedback and the customer gets to come back (if they so choose).

I will admit that I was once so distraught at my meal at a restaurant, I filled in the comment card in lipstick. The pen had just enough ink in it for me to sign the receipt and then died...just one of the many horrible experiences during this dining moment.

At the same time, I recently completed an online feedback session for the Crowne Plaza at Times Square...all excellent feedback. I couldn't gush enough about most of my stay at this hotel (only down side was the lack of solid water pressure on the 43rd floor). But the people who worked there deserved mentioning and I was aware enough to find their names and mention them specifically in my letter.Nice place to stay!