Sister Zhou immediately walked up to Xiao Yang, with an apologetic smile on her face, and said, “We are very sorry to bring you a bad dining experience. We will replace the dishes for you immediately and send you a fruit plate to apologize. Please wait, it will be resolved for you within five minutes.” Xiao Yang pretended to be angry and raised some questions, such as whether the replaced dishes would still be cold. Sister Zhou patiently answered them one by one.

After the drill, Chen Yu praised Ms. Zhou’s performance and pointed out some areas for improvement, such as a more sincere tone and a more natural expression. He then said to all the waiters, “As you can see, we must handle customer complaints promptly, professionally, and sincerely. Every contact with customers is an opportunity to showcase our service, and we must seize the opportunity.”

Next, Chen Yu emphasized some details in the service process, such as the order of serving dishes, how to recommend dishes to customers, how to handle customers’ special needs, etc. He also asked the waiters to work in pairs to conduct simulated service drills, while he observed and guided them and corrected any problems in a timely manner.

During the rehearsal, some waiters were not confident enough when recommending dishes, so Chen Yu encouraged them: “You know our restaurant’s dishes best. You should believe in your recommendations and infect customers with your enthusiasm and professionalism.” When some waiters handled customers’ special needs, their communication methods were not appropriate, so Chen Yu personally demonstrated and taught them how to communicate effectively with customers.

Unconsciously, an afternoon had passed. Although the waiters were a little tired, their eyes were full of seriousness and concentration. Chen Yu looked at them and felt very relieved. He knew that high-quality service was one of the core competitiveness of the hotel. Only by continuously improving the service level can it remain invincible in the fierce market competition.

In the kitchen, Master Li was still busy. Following Wang Jianye’s advice, he began to prepare the ingredients for the sixth version of the kimchi pot to be tested tomorrow. He carefully selected Thai peppers, washed and chopped them, and silently calculated the proportions in his mind. Kitchen assistant Xiao Wang helped by placing the other ingredients neatly one by one. “Master, do you think this sixth version will be successful?” Xiao Wang asked curiously. Master Li smiled and said, “How can you know if you don’t try it? As long as you work hard, you can always make a taste that satisfies customers.”

As the night went on, the customers in the restaurant gradually left and the waiters finished their day’s work. But Master Li and Chen Yu had not left yet. Master Li continued to study the sauces and dishes in the kitchen, while Chen Yu sorted out the summary and improvement plan of today’s service drill in the office.

……

At eight o’clock in the evening, the night enveloped the entire city. The streets of Singapore were brightly lit and busy. In the purchasing office of Wang’s All-inclusive Hotel, the lights were still on. Purchasing Director Lao Zhao sat at his desk piled with documents, raised his voice and said solemnly into the speakerphone: “Mr. Zhang, the price of this batch of lettuce has increased by 40% compared to last week, which makes it difficult for us to do business. As you know, we have been a long-term cooperative customer. Such a large price increase puts too much pressure on our costs.”

The supplier’s voice sounded a little helpless over the phone: “Lao Zhao, it’s not that I don’t want to help. The typhoon flooded the farm, and now the whole island is scrambling for supplies. The food is in short supply. For the sake of our long-time customers, I will leave you at most two tons. It took me a lot of effort to coordinate this.”

After hearing this, Lao Zhao frowned and scratched his graying temples subconsciously, with a hint of anxiety in his eyes. He knew very well the importance of food supply and cost control to restaurant operations, and this was no small matter. He picked up the calculator, quickly typed out a series of numbers, and then said to the phone: “Mr. Zhang, our restaurant is now in a critical period of activity, and the demand for lettuce is relatively large. We need three tons. How about this, the price will remain the same as last week, and the next order will be increased by 15%. Do you think this is okay? We have been cooperating for so many years and it has always been very pleasant. This time, we hope you can support us more.”

The other end of the line fell silent. Lao Zhao held his breath and stared at the phone, as if he could see through the supplier’s mind. Ten seconds later, the other party finally said, “Okay, since you are so sincere, I will do as you say. The cold chain truck will arrive at your warehouse at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning. Don’t change your mind again.”

Old Zhao let out a long sigh and a gratified smile appeared on his face: “Thank you so much, Mr. Zhang. Don’t worry, we will definitely receive it on time, and we will definitely not let you down in the follow-up cooperation.” After hanging up the phone, Old Zhao rubbed his aching temples, carefully wrote down the details of this purchase in his notebook, and then got up and left the office.

At ten o’clock the next morning, sunlight shone through the windows of the conference room onto the walnut conference table. The hotel’s executives sat together, looking focused. Wang Jianye pushed three documents to the center of the table and said solemnly, “This is the operating data of the past 72 hours, the classification of customer complaints, and the supply chain cost change table. Everyone, take a look, let’s analyze the current operating status of the hotel together.”

Chef Li was the first to pick up the kitchen report and pointed to the data on it and said: “The customer praise rate of the improved kimchi pot has increased from 68% to 82%, which shows that our improvement direction is correct and customers are very receptive to the new taste. However, the cost per serving has increased by 1.2 Singapore dollars, mainly due to the adjustment of the new sauce and the combination of ingredients.”

Chen Yu continued, “Service complaints have dropped by 35%, thanks to our previous enhanced service training, which has significantly improved employees’ service awareness and problem-solving capabilities. However, the training has led to an 8% increase in employee overtime pay, which is also a cost factor we need to consider.”

Wang Jianye nodded slightly, tapping his fingers on the table. After thinking for a moment, he tapped the glass with his pen to attract everyone’s attention: “Now vote: Do you want to maintain the current intensity of activities? Raise your hands if you agree.”

As soon as he finished speaking, seven hands were raised one after another. Purchasing Director Lao Zhao did not move. He had a serious expression and said slowly: “I reserve my opinion. If the price of lettuce does not fall back next month, according to the current purchase volume and cost calculation, the profit margin will be further compressed. We must take this into consideration and not only look at the current activity results and ignore the impact of costs on profits.”

After hearing this, Wang Jianye fell into deep thought again. After a while, he said, “Then we will tentatively extend the event for two weeks. During these two weeks, we will closely monitor costs and market trends. After the meeting, Chen Yu will update the announcement, Chef Li will continue to monitor the feedback on the dishes, and Lao Zhao will report on the fluctuations in the purchase price every day. Everyone must do their job well to ensure the stable operation of the restaurant.”

During the Saturday evening rush hour, the restaurant was bustling with activity and brightly lit. The window seats for members were full of customers, and laughter was heard one after another. Waiter Xiao Yang followed the training requirements and shuttled between the tables. When pouring tea for each member, he pressed a handwritten note under the coaster, which read: “Today’s chef’s recommendation: Members’ exclusive spicy fried octopus (adjustable spiciness)”. Xiao Yang smiled and moved skillfully, and every detail was done to the extreme.

The young couple at table seven scanned the code to receive the mango pudding that they exchanged for points. When the girl saw the exquisite pudding, her eyes lit up and she excitedly said to the boy: “Honey, look at this pudding, there is gold foil on it, it’s so beautiful!” As she said that, she took a picture of the plating with her mobile phone and posted it on the social platform, with the text: “Membership benefits are obtained! The gold foil details on the pudding are so touching~” Soon, this dynamic received many likes and comments from friends. At the cashier, the old man wearing a fisherman’s hat shook his membership card and said to the cashier with a smile: “The points I applied for last week to exchange for parking tickets are online now? You are very efficient. I thought I had to wait for a long time.” The cashier smiled and responded: “Thank you for your compliment, this is what we should do. You can enjoy more member-exclusive benefits next time you come.”

At the Monday morning meeting, Chen Yu stood in front of the projector and showed the new data: “The member repurchase rate reached 42%, which shows that our member-exclusive discount activities have achieved good results and successfully attracted customers to patronize again. The average order value of non-members increased by 10%, which may be affected by the atmosphere of the event and the recommendation of dishes. However, complaints about seafood are still concentrated in the afternoon tea period, which requires our special attention.”

Chef Li called up the kitchen surveillance and pointed at the screen and said, “Only apprentices were on duty from 2pm to 4pm. During this time, some minor problems occurred in food processing and cooking, which affected the quality of seafood dishes. I suggest adjusting the schedule to ensure that there are senior chefs on duty all day, so that the quality of the dishes can be better controlled.”

Wang Jianye was listening and taking notes on his notebook. Suddenly, he looked up and asked, “Did the customer who wanted to exchange the parking ticket come back later?”

Chen Yu quickly looked through the records and replied, “Mr. Li has come three times this week and brought two friends to register as members. It seems that meeting the reasonable needs of customers can not only improve customer loyalty, but also bring in new customers.”

After hearing this, everyone smiled knowingly.

……

At nine o’clock in the morning on the fifth day after the launch of the campaign, the sun in Singapore had already begun to become scorching, but Wang’s entire hotel chain was bustling with activity. Chen Yu hurried into the data analysis room with three laptops in his arms. In the data analysis room, the electronic screen hanging on the wall was displaying the hotel’s customer flow statistics in real time. The numbers kept jumping, recording the hotel’s busyness. Four interns were sitting around the table, carefully sorting out the printed customer feedback cards. The only sound in the room was the rustling of paper.

Chen Yu inserted the USB drive into the host computer, waited for a while, and called up the social media background data. He pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and said to Xiao Lin, a data clerk wearing black-framed glasses, “Xiao Lin, filter out the comments with the keyword ‘member activity’ in the past 72 hours. We will focus on analyzing these feedbacks.” Xiao Lin responded and tapped quickly on the keyboard. Instantly, a dense barrage of comments popped up on the screen, with texts of various colors interlaced, like a storm of information.

Chen Yu stared at the screen, quickly scanning the comments one by one, and then circled one of them with a laser pen: “The one who said the seafood pot had a strong fishy smell, check the back kitchen surveillance of the corresponding table number to see what happened at that time.” Xiao Lin skillfully switched pages, called up the surveillance system, and began to look for the corresponding time and table number. After a while, the surveillance screen showed that at 3:12 pm the day before yesterday, apprentice Xiao Zhang skipped the lemon water soaking step when cleaning the squid. Chen Yu frowned, quickly wrote “strengthen food pre-processing training” in his notebook, and then turned to ask the customer service manager: “Where is the follow-up record of this complaint? We have to see if the handling result satisfies the customer.”

The customer service manager quickly opened the folder, looked through it for a while and said, “A fruit plate was given as a gift, and the customer gave him a 20% discount when he checked out. The customer seemed emotionally stable when he left, but judging from this comment, his dissatisfaction may not have been completely resolved.” Chen Yu nodded and fell into thought.

At this time, Wang Jianye pushed the door open, holding a thermos cup in his hand. His steps were steady and his eyes were sharp. As soon as he entered the door, he glanced at the bar chart of the proportion of negative reviews on the screen – 62% of complaints were about catering, and 28% were about service. He frowned slightly, pointed at the highest red column, and said in a deep and powerful voice: “How many times has the saltiness of spicy stir-fried rice cakes appeared? This is not a small problem, and it must be solved quickly.”

Chen Yu quickly pulled up the dish tracking sheet and replied, “We have received 19 related feedbacks in the past three days, mostly during the dinner period. It seems that there may be some problems in the production process during the dinner period.”

Master Li happened to walk in, and upon hearing this, he immediately took out his cell phone: “I’m going to check the surveillance now to see if the seasoning ratio was not clearly handed over during the shift change. The kitchen is short-staffed recently, and it is indeed easy for things to go wrong during shift changes.” As he said that, he quickly left the data analysis room and went to the kitchen to check the surveillance.

At ten o’clock, seven managers sat down around the walnut conference table. The atmosphere in the conference room was solemn. Wang Jianye slapped the printed complaint classification form on the table, and the metal bracelet made a crisp sound when it hit the table. “First, solve the three most fatal things: food stability, waiting time, and points system bugs. If these problems are not solved, the effect of our membership activities will be greatly reduced, and there will be fewer and fewer customers.”

Chen Yu turned on the projector, and the beam of light hit the screen, revealing a clear mind map: “Regarding the waiting problem, I suggest adding a self-service tea station in the waiting area so that customers can have a better experience while waiting. At the same time, develop a real-time queuing system for mobile phones so that customers don’t have to wait and can arrange their time freely.”

Financial director Lao Zhou pushed up his reading glasses, looking a little worried: “The technical department quoted us that it would cost at least 200,000 to develop an app. This is not a small amount of money. We have to consider the cost.”

“First, use the free plug-in for WeChat official accounts.” Chen Yu calmly called up the mobile phone demonstration interface. “This basic version can display the current number being called. The technical department said it will be online in three days. Although the function is simpler, it can temporarily solve the problem, and it will be upgraded according to needs later.” Everyone nodded in agreement. (End of this chapter)