Why consistency
Consistency drives sales. It’s a key to success because customers crave the predictable. Buy a Big Mac in Richmond, Virginia, or Portland, Oregon, and they taste the same. That’s consistency. In fact, many industry experts attribute the success of big fast food chains like McDonald’s to their consistency and we couldn’t agree more.
What needs to be consistent in a restaurant
Consistency refers to the customer’s experience across multiple visits and different locations. These experiences include:
- Food quality (temperature and taste)
- Service quality (speed and consistency),
- Overall cleanliness (sanitization and appearance)
Consistency in these areas creates a predictable experience at every location which leads to repeat customers and ultimately to success.
3 Ways to Improve Consistency
Because most restaurant operations are comprised of repeatable tasks, you can take steps to measure, and improve them. Here are 3 areas to focus on that will improve consistency:
- Measure and improve checklist completion rates. Checklists are the lifeblood of restaurant task management. Ensuring high checklist completion rates means everything gets done the right way across the board. A good way to increase completion rates is to use digital checklists, which help measure performance and increase completion rates by more than 90 percent.
- Improve visibility of checklists to see them in real time. If checklists are checked frequently then completion rates go up and employees make them a priority. Likewise, if you hold individual employees responsible for completed tasks, accountability goes up and so does performance. Digital is huge in improving visibility, as you can look into checklists at any time at any locations.
- Use on-the-spot training to help employees fix problems independently. Tell your employees how to do something and they will most likely forget, involve them in training and they will learn and remember. Additionally, videos are extremely helpful for employees so they can review tasks at any time and see exactly how tasks need to be completed.
- Bonus point, use Jolt!. Jolt empowers employees with software on tablets like digital checklists, food safety, training, and more. Jolt helps franchise owners achieve team accountability with digital checklists and training for more consistent customer experiences.
Restaurant consistency is part of Jolt’s 7 Pillars of Restaurant Success, to read more about essential restaurant practices, download the guide.