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Is it an efficient use of your staff's time to have them clean your restaurant's windows? |
What restaurant owner isn’t thrilled when a family of eight
or more come in to celebrate the birthday of one in their group? A celebration,
such as that, tends to prompt a lax fiscal mentality that includes more
appetizers and, definitely, dessert. But you want the service to bolster the
festive nature of the event. What if it doesn’t?
For instance, what if they are left waiting too long for service. What if the joyous conversation is interrupted by someone asking, “When are they going to come take our orders?” This is not a good time for diners to notice waitstaff standing about idly or even doing chores that could be done at other times.
Imagine if members of that group are beginning to glance at their watches because their meals have yet to arrive while they see a waitress washing windows. It’s not hard to visualize someone in the group commenting, “Couldn’t they be helping to get our orders out rather than washing windows right now?”
It’s not that clean windows aren’t important for an establishment that serves food and drinks; they are. Clean windows are vital when it comes to presenting an eatery or café in a light that suggests cleanliness that extends to food preparation areas. Diners like the idea that their food will be served in a clean and hygienically safe environment. But is having the staff clean the windows an effective use of their time?
When it comes to cleaning windows, restaurant managers may choose the less experienced members of the waitstaff for the job. But wouldn’t their time be better used learning the ropes of taking orders, promptly communicating the customers’ wishes to the kitchen staff and efficiently serving orders?
It takes time for a waiter or waitress to learn the menu and all the nuances involved in filling orders while addressing special needs of some diners. Mostly likely, they also need to learn your POS system, as well. And how many on your staff are really qualified to clean windows.
Cleaning windows isn’t just about getting the dirt off the glass; it’s also about avoiding streaks and not making a mess in the process. Hopefully, the employees who run your restaurant are professionals who know what they’re doing. It’s a bit much to expect their expertise to extend to window cleaning, too.
And how long will it take them to clean your windows? It’s not their primary job. You can’t expect them to complete the window cleaning as promptly as you expect them to take orders. But those who clean windows professionally know what they’re doing.
When a professional window cleaner is done cleaning your windows, the windows are clean, there are no streaks and no mess. And they don’t take all day getting the job done.