Is Your Welcome The Best In Class?

Businesses with a warm welcome are more likely to benefit from customer loyalty and recommendations, a 12 month mystery visitor survey by the National Skills Academy For Hospitality has revealed.

The Academy worked with the Mystery Dining Company to survey over 1,000 hospitality businesses as part of its unique Hospitality Benchmark Programme – including fast food eateries, Michelin starred restaurants, pubs and hotels.

The industry benchmark performance was an impressive 74.37 percent, with 15 businesses scoring 100 percent and 69 scoring 95 percent or more. The Hospitality Benchmark measures how a business performs against a range of behaviour and service factors that are proven to influence customer loyalty.

The results of the survey showed that those who didn't fare as well lost points when it came to warmth and hospitality, and in every region, businesses scored higher on skills-based questions than personality and behaviour.

Two of the businesses scoring 100 percent – McDonald's drive-thru restaurant in East Grinstead, owned and operated by franchisee, John O'Dwyer, and independent restaurant and bar, The Kings Lodge, in Kings Langley - were recognised at the British Hospitality Awards last month, claiming the inaugural National Skills Academy Hospitality Benchmark for Excellence Awards.

Academy chief executive, David McHattie, commented: “The 15 businesses that scored 100 percent clearly illustrate that world-class service is not the sole domain of five star hotels or Michelin starred restaurants. What the top performers have in common is warmth and personality allied with excellent systems and processes that evidently translate into their customer loyalty and ‘willingness to recommend' scores.

“The benefit to those using the Hospitality Benchmark is the valuable insight the collective information offers, which focuses on the customers' perceptions of the experience and their willingness to return and recommend. If you don't know how well or badly you are doing it's difficult to know how to improve.”

Jez Langhorn, HR director at McDonald's UK, added: “The insight provided by the Hospitality Benchmark across a number of our restaurants should give us some useful food for thought and help us better understand the experiences of our customers, helping us evolve our staff training in the future.”

With only two years to go until the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games shines the spotlight on UK hospitality, it's an ideal time to find out how your welcome measures up. To find out how Hospitality Benchmark could help your business, visit www.hospitalitybenchmark.com