As a good Restaurant manager, you know that the success of your restaurant depends on the satisfaction of your guests and turning them into repeat customers.  To be able to achieve a high satisfaction rate, your effort has to focus on service and specifically on the way your waiters interact with your guests.

Indeed, the main cause of customer dissatisfaction is the bad behavior or the lack of professionalism of an employee. For your waiters to provide the best service to their guests, they need to be motivated.

What happens when a waiter is motivated

When you recruit your waiters, you look for the ideal profiles to ensure quality service, people with skills and experience who know how to set the table, take the order, clear, etc. 

But the waiter is often the first and the last person who interacts with your guests: the waiters are therefore the primary ambassadors of

your restaurant's image, the face of the company.

If a waiter is demoralized or demotivated, he/she will be less inclined to put in the effort, to smile, to talk to the guests, or perform his/her overall duties by the highest standard.

This will surely damage the image of your restaurant and hurt your revenue. The waiters are the only persons in the restaurant who can influence the decision making and the choice of the guests.

Your role, in this case, is to create a work environment where your employees feel:

 happy to work

 dynamic during working hours

 concentrated during peak hours

 smiling

 friendly to each other

Creating this kind of environment will benefit your restaurant because it will allow the waiters to follow the service procedures, work with a smile and a friendly attitude and put an effort in selling and up-selling or go the extra step to make the guests happy! 

A happy and positive waiter makes happy and satisfied guests.

Mistakes can always happen! Item missing from

the menu or the quality of a meal, a mistake in the order or the bill, etc. A motivated waiter can deal with calm and diplomacy in such situations. The guests are willing to forgive when the person in front of them is pleasant, smiling, and kind. So the impact of the waiters' motivation is huge on guest complaints.

When the waiter is friendly, he/she creates a warm relationship

with his/her guests and makes them feel at home.

When the staff is motivated, they can provide personalized

attention to each patron.

As each guest is different, with specific needs, we have to pay attention to each one to be able to satisfy them. A motivated waiter is committed to keeping constant eye contact with the guests, analyzing them, listening to them, understanding their needs so he/she can anticipate and offer them a unique customer experience. This is what brings the guests back to your restaurant.

When motivated, he/she gives

the best of himself/herself  and puts his/her efficiency into action to deliver an unforgettable experience to

patrons, which keeps them coming back regularly.

What motivates the waiters?

You may be surprised, but the first thing that motivates the waiters is not money! The friendly, professional, and fair working environment is what gives the waiters the most motivation! It starts with the restaurant manager, the kitchen chef, and goes all the way back to the young trainees!

If the waiters feel that you treat them unfairly, they won't follow your lead.

If they are scared of the kitchen because they get yelled and screamed all the time, they won't communicate properly and won't try to sell the daily specials.

If the waiters see that someone is not performing his/her duties but still gets favorable treatment from the management, it will break the team.

Creating a friendly and fair working environment is not an easy task but it is the first thing you should concentrate on if you want to be successful.

Money is the next big thing that motivates your waiters. Not so much how much you pay them, but mostly how do you split the TIP! There is no doubt that we have to work as a team to ensure the complete guest's satisfaction! There is no other way around, but the waiters are the people in front of the guests and from their behavior depends on the gratuity a guest leaves! Taking it away from them will bring the morale and motivation in the trenches! Make sure you have a fair system that favors the waiters before anyone else!

Scheduling is another factor in waiters motivation. Working long hours overtime, not having days off to relax, working on too many tables, etc.

You have to be flexible and understanding! Not everyone can work on their feet 16 hours a day or 7 days a week without a break! No matter the motivation, a tired waiter could not provide the service your guests are looking for! 

Leadership and opportunities to grow are two other factors that motivate your waiters! Are you a manager who is running around and looking for mistakes so you can scream and yell at the staff? Are you the kind of person who is always ready to jump in and help when things get dirty? 

Do you have the patience to listen and offer advice and support to your employees, or you dismiss their complaints and requests as stupid?

Do you see the knowledgable and hard-working people on your roster to allow them to grow? Or do you favor the brown-noses that are always in your ears with flatteries and compliments?

Many more factors keep your staff motivated or disgruntled, but those are the main ones! 

The bottom line is that having highly motivated waiters on your roster will guarantee the success of your establishment! And it is a good thing to concentrate your efforts on that! 

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