Imagine you enjoy your meal at a restaurant. You enjoy the food. You enjoy the drinks. And you enjoy the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is also part of what you pay for. There are good hotels and restaurants which offer great stuff, but you wouldn’t enjoy it, if the atmosphere was severely or repeatedly disturbed.
Disturbing the atmosphere can happen on many levels. It ranges from bad service over mismatching interior design to sound, light, and smell.
Let’s focus on one element today. Cleaning the tables.
When you approach your table, you expect it to welcome you.
Welcoming elements include that everything is in order: table, chairs, table cloth, silverware, decorations.
You also want everything to be clean: no stains, no creases, no fingermarks, no crumbs.
Then you look for comfort: the more you like sitting on that chair and if it fits well the height of the corresponding table, the more likely that you will feel well and therefore stay longer.
So, let’s assume that everything is perfectly arranged. You sit at your table and enjoy everything. All of a sudden, your waiter approaches you. In one hand he carries a spray bottle, in the other a pink cleaning cloth. He stops at the table right next to you, turns his back to you and starts clearing the table. He rips off the cloth, crumbs falling on the chairs and floor. He parks the crumpled and dirty table cloth on a chair. Then, while swinging his arms in all directions, he distributes the spray evenly. You feel a sudden moist in the air, accompanied by a fresh scent of lemon.
The lovely atmosphere is gone. The lemon scent does not match your food or drink. Moreover, you don’t feel welcomed anymore. You feel like they are cleaning up around you. Maybe they want you to leave and get their work done?
If you are in a place where people come and go and the service would need to prepare the table for the next guests waiting - okay. Then you probably already expected some rush in the service.
However, if you paid to enjoy a special dinner, you don’t want to feel rushed or unwelcome. Cleaning activities around you will influence your event and your atmosphere.
Cleaning-related service activities can be organized in a way that go unnoticed by any guest. And if they need to be carried out in the presence of a guest, they should always be taken care of as discreetly as possible. Even if that means additional work for the service.
Never forget: it is all about the client, not about what’s easier or quicker for the waiter.
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