Are you being served (well)?: Why good service is important

One of the most important things about pubs is the service. A good experience can make your day – and a bad one could ruin your evening. As customers can (and do) vote with their feet and take their custom elsewhere if they’re unpleased, it’s in everyone’s interest to get it right. At BitterSweet Partnership, we recently found that 26% of women find an unwelcoming atmosphere their biggest pub turn-off – and service is a large part of that.

The most obvious aspect of this is just to hire staff that know how important the small things are – ‘service with a smile’ might be a cliché but it makes a real difference. Another important cliché is ‘the customer is always right’ – they might not be, but it’s important for customers to think they are.

Also key to this is getting the serve correct. BitterSweet Partnership works to ignite a love of beer in women – and as it stands, beer has a bit of an image problem. I think this is partly because sloppily served pints just don’t encourage respect for beer as a sophisticated and subtle drink. You might have seen recently in The Publican that Molson Coors (who formed BitterSweet Partnership) has recently launched a programme to get one million people back into pubs by educating staff. By educating teams to serve beer at its best while making the customer happy, pubs will become even better places to spend our time – and that’s something I’m very happy to raise a glass to!