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STANDING IN LINE

14 February 2008

Speedy service at Land & Sea, a shop where queues aren't feared but seen as a challenge - and an opportunity

Sandy Grilli of Dom's Fish & Chips at Thornton near Glenrothes defines the task when he says: "Everywhere is different. Though Fish and Chips is the same market throughout the UK the actual mindset of customers is very different. If your shop is in a holiday destination - which isn't the case with us - then people are often prepared to wait longer. But this isn't the case in places where people are busy working and don't have time. It's a perennial problem."

Sandy's shop is built around quality product, all cooked to order. Custom is strictly local with little passing trade. And as precious few people spend holidays in Glenrothes he's got to remain pretty sharp when it comes to queues. He tells of one regular who will wait quite some time when she drops in to another award-winning shop on the 'tourist coast' nearby but when she's at home in Glenrothes where she lives and works she doesn't want to hang around. "She says she has two kids left at home unattended and a husband due in from work," adds Sandy, "and she hasn't the time to wait about. "The secret is of course to keep a queue moving and so people feel they're getting somewhere and that it won't be too long."

And to help ease the wait Sandy has planned in a few diversions. "We've got a wide-screen TV and the place is quite open plan so people can watch Fish and Chips being prepared. The whole idea of the shop was to let people see Fish and Chips being cooked - people like it especially kids. This all takes the edge off a bit, but there's a limit to entertainment. While you can get away with a few diversions anything over ten minutes becomes too much. After all people aren't out to a matinee - they're out to get their food."

Sandy identifies another problem in people trying to beat the queue by phoning in orders. All sales are welcome of course but people coming in and collecting orders ahead of a line of waiting customers can create some unrest
in the queue. It's difficult for the trade to win. Nevertheless queues aren't entirely bad. As elsewhere in life they are often a sign of a good thing on offer and they do have their upside, as Susan Ord at Land & Sea Fish & Chips at Polmont points out.

"It's the case that once people have ordered and have started to wait for their food to be cooked they'll look around and then buy say a bottle of Irn Bru or something else. This is a chance for extra sales." Sandy Grilli agrees, adding: "Queues do give us a chance to interact with customers - even though you haven't really go the time. What you've got to do is watch over doing it though. I have the staff trained to acknowledge people and ask how they are - to be personable without going on and holding the queue back by chatting."

Susan Ord sees queues as another opportunity to communicate with customers and to this effect she produces her own high quality posters for people to read and help while away the minutes until their order is ready. Posters carry messages varying from Land & Sea's policy on sustainability and ingredient quality through to its charitable activities. "What we do is run campaigns on these issues," she explains. "And this helps with another need - to keep things fresh. We change the posters quite a bit, really. It's an opportunity to communicate to people on behalf of our industry. It's important to use opportunities like this and the messages across. And it's a chance to show some understanding of a changing market."

Susan has clearly thought out the queue situation in depth. She sees performance of staff at peak trading time as a real test of her operation. And she's set up a system including staff training to deliver top quality service throughout, everything from meeting and greeting through to using the proper bag and packaging when the food is handed over. "The aim is, that people don't notice that they've been served in an efficient manner during a really busy period. That should be a given thing."

But don't be thinking Susan is all operations management. She believes that while the shop is busy and staff do have to perform at their peak that there's also got to be a sense of fun. "We do little things like leave out Love Hearts sweets for customers to take. They pick these up and laugh. This is a bit of fun and what it means is that people actually entertain themselves."

Meanwhile the issue of 'entertainment' for people queuing is catching on fast, with an increasing number of shops introducing continuous loop video or plasma TV screens. However, this isn't every fryer's cup of tea. People like David Hennighan of Hennighan's Top Shop in Powys is very much again. "I can't understand why anybody would want a telly in a shop," he says. "A lot of people are glad to get the chance to be away from it! Things are more sociable without."

David has some other interesting takes on the queue challenge, which will strike chords with many fryers. "I really struggle at peak times to keep queues down here because I've only got two pans. Sometimes I even have to tell staff to slow down a bit because the two pans just can't keep up. It's a bit like being on a motorway - it's better to be going at 40 to 50 miles an hour than race at 90 and then be held standing still right after for 30 minutes. "What you really need is a steady flow of service and for the queue to keep moving steadily. If that happens people are more patient and can see it will be their turn soon enough. And it's also important to make the staff relax at these times. If they're relaxed that translates to customers."

Another fryer to use queuing time to campaign among customers is Huw Jones of the Finnegan's shops in South Wales. His posters range from humorous to the more serious regarding fish stocks and the nutritional values of fish and chips. And like a number of good communicators in the trade Huw believes that a personal message carried on a poster produced in-house for his particluar customers is much more effective than anything that's mass produced.