Critical B&I customer/client criteria should

govern everything we do in serving this market

Definition of the term Business and Industry (B&I) food service category:  Food, executive dinning, vending, catering, office coffee and convenience store services operated primarily for to benefit of a specific employer and/or building tenants use.

This food service category is dominated by contract management companies with tremendous buying power

The customer base in these facilities is often referred to as “a captive audience”.  Of course this is never true.  Customers always have alternatives. 

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Knowing Your Business

Average Participation:

In the past national surveys indicate the typical B&I customer visits their food service facility 2.6 times per day.  This includes pre work breakfast, morning break, lunch and afternoon breaks.  Most work five days per week with two weeks vacation and six holidays.

Translated; the above the averages indicate a B&I customer is present and available to visit a B&I business unit 244 days a year.  2.6 visits times the 244 days they are at work, gives a B&I operator 635 opportunities to make a sale to each individual and to secure them as a “regular customer”. It also gives each individual 635 times to see everything the facility has to offer and 635 times to form an impression of the way the business is run.  This fact of life in the B&I category of the food service career field is universally called “The Boredom factor”.  It is a business killer.

Control criteria:

Surveys indicate that an operator can expect (and are typically held accountable for) maintaining an 85% participation rate.

• This is calculated by dividing the average daily customer count by the average building population Example: average customer count 425 divided by average building count 500 equals 85% participation.
• For this calculation each sale (transaction) is considered a customer.
• It is extremely important to maintain accurate customer counts by day parts i.e. breakfast, AM: break, lunch, PM: break, dinner (if any).
• The entire B&I business is (should be) controlled by this information.  This includes menu engineering, purchasing, marketing, labor distribution customer relations etc.

Customer criteria:

• Potential customer base categories:
  • Ethnic ratios
  • Hourly (manufacture)
  • Hourly (Clerical)
  • Administrative
  • Management
  • Executive
  • Others from outside i.e. trainees, client customers, business meetings etc.

• Break criteria (length, times etc.)
• Average income by category (this establishes maximum, potential spending habits)
• Number of days/hours scheduled per employee per category
• Vacation policy per category
• Access to competitive food service
• Availability of parking
• All of the above should be used in determining food service menu, projected sales and all operational and financial criteria.

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Managing your business on purpose

Never let your business manage you

• Never leave things alone.  Recognize that change is mandatory for success in B&I
• View change as your biggest asset.
• Always keep the “Boredom Factor” in mind in everything you do.
• Use every piece of information you can collect that will help you beat this “business killer”
• Every fiber of you needs to accept and embrace change is part of you running your business on purpose.
• Stagnation; same old menu items, same old displays, same old personal dress (garments and style), same old signs, same old employee rhetoric, same old marketing all are all examples of you business running you.
• Always remember the definition of insanity is “Doing the same old things the same old way and expecting different results.

Nobody will keep your business alive with out you establishing the criteria. Human nature resists change.  The lazy way out is to stay in a rut.  Insisting on and managing change is entirely up to you.  Let’s start planning change right now here in this seminar.