Restaurant Service Package in Premier Inn

Premier Inn Sunbury Kempton Park

The hotel is situated on Sunbury on Thames which is a walking distance from Kempton race course and short drive distance from Twickenham international stadium. The property consists of 109 rooms, a restaurant and a bar. The restaurant is operated by Table Table brand owned by same company. It got 74 covers and operated for breakfast and dinner.

Service package of the Restaurant

Service is an activity or series of activity which is intangible in nature and give solutions to customer’s problems (Gronross, 1990). Service package is the package of goods and services provided in the same environment and in the case of restaurant it will be food and services provided in same restaurant. Basically it consists of four elements that will provide a consistent image for an organization. The four types of service packages are supporting facilities, facilitating goods, explicit service and implicit service.

Supporting facilities

This is the physical resources should be available before the service which is going to support the service operation. It can be location, building, unique features, interior décor, supporting equipments, equipment lay out, up to date machines and furniture. In the case of Premier inn restaurant there are many supporting facilities helps to do the service. Restaurant building with four divided section itself is a supporting facility. It got 7 round tables for 4, 6 rectangular tables for 4, 8 square tables for 2, 1 oval table for 6 and 74 chairs. The decorations include indoor sculptured bushes, props, spot lights, and wooden floor. The breakfast area consist of a hot plate for the hot buffet, chiller for fruits & yogurts, and a Costa coffee machine. There is one micros, till, printer, card payment machine, and special of the day board in the restaurant reception. The restaurant uses equipments like stainless steel cutleries, wine glasses and paper napkins for the services. The restaurant is in first floor and kitchen is situated in the ground floor. There are two small lifts connecting restaurant and kitchen one with hot plate for the food and the other one is for the dirty cutleries.

Recommendation

The fixed layout of the supporting facilities should arrange in manner to achieve the performance objectives of operations. There should be a stair case directly from restaurant to kitchen in case any problem with the food lifts otherwise the service going to be effected. Two micros needed in the restaurant and currently it is running with only one micros, during busy dinner time waiters are queuing in front of the micros and taking more time for the process. All these changes will helps to achieve the performance objective and the wrong layout of the resources will reduce the speed and result in long queue, the time process will increase inflexible operation and this lead to high cost.

Facilitating goods

These are the materials purchased or consumed by customer or provided by the company. In the restaurant facilitating goods will be food and beverage which is consumed by the customers. This is the important one in the service package and this will be the main focus of the customer’s expectation. The three main focus areas of facilitating goods are its consistency, quantity and selection.

Consistency:- Consistency in production is very important for the restaurant. The kitchen always keeps consistency in portion size, in taste and availability of the food items in the menu. But many times it has been noticed that the waiting time in the busy time has more than standard time and the food is getting cold because of time taken from kitchen to restaurant through lift.

Quantity: – Premier inn is a value for money brand and they provide good portion of food and beverage for a medium price. For premier inn breakfast the customer can consume unlimited food& beverage from the buffet. Dinner portions are pre plated and same quantity for each and every item except the items from the kids menu. The wines served by bottle and by glass as well 125ml, 175ml and 250ml. Coffees are served in two measures primo and medio.

Selection:- The breakfast beverages selections got choice of Costa coffee or selection of tea and four types of juices. There are minimum of 4 varieties of flavored yogurt, seven types of cereals, fruit salad and mix berry compote on cold buffet. The hot buffet consist of fried egg, scrambled egg, premium pork sausages, back bacon, mushroom, grilled tomato and baked beans. There are two types of menu available for the dinner regular ala carte dinner menu and meal deal value for money menu which is a table d hot menu and restaurant provide a kids menu as well. Dinner menu consists of sharing platter, starters, steaks, burger, pizza, fish, desserts and special of the day.

Recommendation

• Inventory management:-

Good inventory management will again assist to attain the performance objective. Quality of inventory ingredients will increase the quality of facilitating goods and holding enough inventories will increase the speed and flexibility of the service. Bulk purchasing will reduce the cost and proper planning will give an advantage of dependability as well. The restaurant could use buffer inventory for the high value usage items and use anticipation inventory for medium value and low value usage items. Buffer inventory is the stocking of items for an expected fluctuation and in anticipation inventory items will gather according to the expected future demand.

• Supply chain management:-

Supply chain management helps to improve the reduce cost and increase the dependability and flexibility of facilitating goods. It will also help to enhance explicit service like menu availability. Synchronization strategy will be the best one to adopt for the restaurant. Through synchronization restaurant can achieve flawless supply of product means right product in the right place in the right time. It will assist maintain the enough stock in the kitchen and to maintain right amount of wine stock in the restaurant and this will helps to increase the consistency in service with right quantity customers order.

Explicit services

Explicit service is the benefits readily observable or sensual benefits from delivered operation for the customers which is an essential feature for the operation. It could be presentation of food, aroma, taste, range of items in the menu, rate of delivery of food & service and accuracy of the order; all this will impress the customer and increase the customer satisfaction. The experience of the staff is one of the explicit services which is observable which will have a direct effect on accuracy of order and speed of service.

The restaurant is serving small selection menu of good tasty foods and its got a simple presentation with decent garnishes. There is not many experienced staff in service but kitchen staffs are experienced. The breakfast buffet consists of several items and it is a great value for money for £7.95 per person. The availability of the menu items is high because the selection of items in the dinner menu is not so elaborated. Premier Inn offers service guarantee of value for money in each menu item and they just introduced a 2 course and 3 course meal + breakfast deal which will charge £11.95 and £22.00 respecively. On time delivery of the food has been a problem for the restaurant during busy periods which is effecting customer satisfaction. The restaurant is only open for breakfast and dinner; 4 hours in the morning and 5 hours in the evening. There is grab and go breakfast facility which is hot croissant & Costa coffee and take away menu for dinner also is available. Perceived risk to come to the Premier inn restaurant will be considered very less by the customers because of its famous value for money brand image. These available benefits will make a positive impact on customer satisfaction.

Recommendation

• Process through put time reduction:-

Through put time is the time taken for a unit and its waiting time. The reduction in through put time will help to increase the speed of the service. There problem in the process timings can reduce through by simplifying activities or change in sequence of activities. The manager should analyze the process map to find the efficiency and how to improve it.

• Capacity management:-

“Service capacity is the maximum level of value-added activity over a period of time” that the service process can achieve under normal operating condition (Slack et al, 1998). Restaurant resources are underutilized and it is empty after the breakfast until 5 pm. Restaurant need to open for lunch as well using the same dinner menu for the time being and develop a lunch menu later on. It can use mix of level capacity, chase strategy and demand management strategy to increase the demand. There is a big terrace on top of the building which is not used for anything. It can be used for special private parties or cocktail dinner using restaurant staffing. These facilities will benefit the in house and local customers.

• Skill development:-

Skill development is important for the service staff because most of the staffs are inexperienced. Job design will help the staffs to perform well. Manager should make sure the involvement of staff while designing work. Instruct the staff about the delivery time of each and every dish after taking the order. Create a buddy system for on the job training. Premier inn has an online training system and the outlet manager should confirm each and every staff is benefit from this online training. Well trained and skilled staff could increase the performance objectives of the operation and this will have a positive impact on customer satisfaction.

Implicit service

This is the Psychological benefits that obtain to the customers from using a particular service. If the service is not up to the mark there can be negative effect on customer feeling. For the restaurant this will be the feeling created through the attitude of the staff, waiting condition, atmosphere created through décor, music & tidiness, seating confortnes of chair & table, sense of well being, privacy security and convenience.

The Premier Inn restaurant staffs are friendly & got great attitude towards the service. The mild music and the adjustable lightings create a special atmosphere in the restaurant. The hotel got a convenient and secured free parking area for the customers and the gate will close automatically opens only with the security code. The brand name of the company will give a status feeling for the customers and the value for money pricing strategy will give a low risk feeling to them to try the restaurant. It operates in single queue with one reception and the waiting time for the seating will have a psychological effect on customers. There is always a big queue during busy period in the restaurant because of fluctuation in the arrival rate.

Recommendation

• Queue management:-

Queue management is very important to manage the long queue which is going to effect the customer satisfaction. Uncertainty arrival can control by taking reservation for busy week end night. Restaurant can maintain the single queue for breakfast and dinner. Explained waiting, finite waiting, comfort waiting, perceived waiting and in process time waiting will have less impact on customer satisfaction. During busy breakfast time if table is not available the manager should inform around how long the customer has to wait and sit them in the bar area.

• Improved décor:-

Decoration and lighting could improve by more props and some spot lighting which will improve the mood of the restaurant. A flower ways will be appropriate in the table during diner service.

• Occasional décor:-

A temporary decoration can be done to attract the customers during festive season or any special occasions like Christmas, New Year and Valentine’s Day. For some occasional dinner like birth day party or anniversary celebration the decoration can be done on tables with crackers and balloons.

• Partitioned restaurant and bar:-

There should be a removable partition between restaurant and bar because the restaurant atmosphere with mild music should not be disturbed by the sound from the big TV in the bar.

• Tidiness of the restaurant:-

Cleaning after each service of the restaurant should hand over to the house keeping department who are specialist in cleaning and dusting. There is good team of outsourced staffs working in the house keeping department. Manager can reduce the staffing in the restaurant after the service due to this and the area will be cleaner and tidy as well.

Conclusion

Operations have number of characteristics which effect the customer satisfaction. The concept of four types of service package facilitates will help the managers to improve the efficiency of operation. These things will helps to improve the five performance objective of the operational process to achieve customer expectations which will leads to customer satisfaction. Premier inn Sunbury restaurant link strategy of business to its operation. It helps to provide the value for money food and service through operation efficiency.