Scoozzi Trattoria

Ways to Increase Wine Sales

Scoozzi’s is also a wine bar, where wine buffs of all levels of sophistication can enjoy tasting special favorites or sampling lesser known boutique wines.

Because wine knowledge is an important server skill, Scoozzi’s servers taste a selection of key wines the restaurant wants to emphasize that evening. They then are asked to describe each wine’s flavor in their own words. This helps increase servers’ confidence in knowledgeably recommending wines to best suit their customers’ tastes.

For guests not ordering wine by the bottle, servers are trained to suggest that they sample a “flight” of three different wines by the glass (aperitif, dinner wine, and dessert wine) for a single price. This helps the guests enjoy a variety of wines throughout their meal, while increasing by the glass wine sales.

Encouraging Server/Guest Loyalty

Recognizing the critical role that the right server/guest relationship can have on customer satisfaction, when guests comment that they were particularly impressed with their server, the server is encouraged to give the guests their name on the restaurant’s card so they can request them by name on their next visit!

Excellence Takes Lots of Practice

Employee excellence does not happen by accident, but results from careful, constant training. For example, Scoozzi’s new servers, bartenders, and hosts are trained to respect superior food quality above all by being first trained in the kitchen.

Also, in regularly scheduled training meetings, key team members who excel in areas of expertise (serving, bartending, etc.) are recognized with the extra responsibility of modeling their winning techniques for fellow team members through role playing sessions. These “experts” then encourage and critique as the others practice those techniques.

Also motivating staff is the weekly “Scoozzi Employee Noozzletter,” which informs team members about new policies and sales contests. The simple, typewritten sheet also has an important cheerleading role, by specifically recognizing individuals when they go “above and beyond” to satisfy a customer.

This sort of public recognition is motivational, but sometimes private “Attaboys”/“Attagirls” mean the most. That is why after an especially busy shift, the manager likes to salute the battle weary cooks and dishwashers with thanks and a cold soda. This personal attention is especially important in demonstrating to each and every employee that what they do directly impacts the satisfaction of each and every customer!