Phones in hospitality - necessary or just rude?
Nobody disputes that having a phone, being able to receive and return calls is a great invention. In restaurants it might be a problem as it disturbs others and distracts from the purpose of being in a restaurant - enjoying food and atmosphere.
People who interrupt their conversation to check their display, pick up after the ring while talking to you is simply rude but done too often. One of the worst is the “I will show you something funny” and then just searching for minutes on the phone and don't find anything. Very funny!
Just imagine sitting in a restaurant, having a conversation while the other one is reading a book and still looks up from time to time to show his attention.
It also slows service as described in article which is already a little older but still true.
A unnamed restaurant in NYC is blaming customers' use of cell phones for its slow service. According to Eater NY, a restaurant in NYC found that it received an "increasing number of customers complaining about slow service in recent years" and so it hired a firm to investigate the problem.
After comparing footage from a dinner service in 2004 to footage from a dinner service in 2014 — on a day that had "roughly the same amount of customers" — the restaurant found that a meal used to take around one hour to serve, but now it takes closer to two. It claims that in 2014 "9 out of 45 customers sent their food back to reheat," adding, "Obviously if they didn't pause to do whatever on their phone the food wouldn't have gotten cold." The restaurant also apparently found that in 2014 "26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food." The use of cell phones also caused customers to take longer to look at the menu and order food. Plus, when "customers are constantly busy on their phones it took an average of 20 minutes more from when they were done eating until they requested a check.
”Are Smartphones to Blame for Slow Service at Restaurants? by Khushbu Shah Jul 14, 2014
Hotels demanding their managers to answer e - mails and call from the big bosses within a certain time frame is the most rude interference in hospitality business. Talking to a guest you will have to show clearly that there are more important things than a conversation with the guest?
The Lockdown helped us to keep contact through our devises but let's hope we can soon put them on the shelve again.
Author: Stephan Busch, Academic Director at the State University for the Humanities Moscow RGGU, Faculty of Tourism & Hospitality and the Swiss International University earned his Master Certificate in Hospitality Management from Cornell University, USA. He has a diverse experience in launching operations, business development and service training- for hotel and cruise companies in Asia, Europe, Canada and Russia.
www.itsjusthotelsservice.com, contact@itsjusthotelsservice.com