At the WorldFood Moscow 2024 exhibition, they discussed the transformation of service and trends in this area

Tatyana Simonova, founder of the Academy of Service and the Training Café business games laboratory, co-founder of the reunion business psychology center, curator of the service school and HR practitioner Novikov Space, external director of SDEK for service development, held a session at the WorldFood HoReCa site dedicated to modern trends in service.

It is now a popular opinion that service in Russia is at the highest level. 91% of companies believe that their service meets customer expectations. However, only 43% of consumers said that the service did NOT disappoint them, but it was not exceptional.

Historically, service in Russia has developed by copying foreign service. Over the past three years, the level of service in the world has been falling significantly and in 2024 it set its anti-record. The assessment is based on three parameters: the quality of customer experience (equal to meeting expectations), ease of receiving service, and emotions.

It turns out that there is no one left to copy. At the same time, the industry is faced with more significant issues that distract from the issue of service:

// Personnel crisis
// Crisis of technology
// Management crisis

At the same time, the market continues to grow, visiting establishments is tightly integrated into people's life scenarios. And then the question arises: why bother with service at all?

Service is a value higher than price, and it is what allows us to maintain a high price level to maintain marginality. In addition, retail is starting to compete with establishments functionally, and service is something that retail cannot yet provide. And of course, service is the motivation to come to the establishment, and not use delivery.

The only way to transform service is not to copy standards, but to transform approaches to people's thinking and their daily work. Now service transformation is happening both at the strategic level (approach to service as a strategy, psychological management models, integration of HR and CX) and at the tactical level (change in behavior with the team, with guests, in management).

Transformation in working with a team:

// Focus on retention
// Learning is a key process
// Time for people
// No slavery

Transformation in working with guests:

// Spotlessly clean
// Laconic
// Technically perfect
// Hospitality with dignity, but without snobbery

Transformation in management:

// Service first, everything else later
// Focus on continuous improvements to customer experience at touchpoints
// Meeting employee expectations

Transformation into strategy:

// Strategic focus: "Happy employee - happy customer"
// Service metrics (NPS, CSI, LTV, UMUX)
// Research non-stop
// The HR budget is equal to or greater than the marketing budget
// Zero HR concept: process automation + on-site bosses
// Transition to a subject-subject management model

“Service is needed not for a business to exist, but for a business to grow,” emphasized Tatyana Simonova.