Creating a drama at T.G.I. Friday’s Is it a pub?

Is it a pub? Is it a restaurant? Or is it theatre? The operators of T.G.I. Friday’s would hope that their
customers see it as all three. For diners who tire of the scripted industrialised service processes of many
fast-food chains, the service encounter at a branch of T.G.I. Friday’s may come as welcome relief.

T.G.I. Friday’s is a themed American restaurant and bar group started in 1965 in the USA and in 2010 had over 1000
restaurants operating in 61 countries. In the UK, the chain operated since 1986 as a franchise through Whitbread
plc (in 2007 Whitbread sold operating rights of its 45 UK restaurants back to a consortium consisting of Carlson
Restaurants Worldwide and ABN Amro Capital).

The credo of T.G.I. Friday’s, according to Richard Snead, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Carlson
Restaurant Worldwide, parent company of T.G.I. Friday’s, is ‘to treat every customer as we would an honoured guest
in our home, and it is reflected in everything we do’.

There are four crucial components of the company philosophy which contribute to successful service encounters at
their restaurant:

– Employees. These are seen as the key to service quality. This applies not only to
front-line staff who visibly contribute to guests’ experience, but also to
back-room staff.
– Product. A meal is a focal point of a customer’s visit and consistency of standards
is important.
– Package. This comprises the building and furnishings which must be kept well
maintained.
– Ambience. This is an important part of the meal experience that is difficult to
specify, but memorable to customers

The first T.G.I. Friday’s was opened at first Avenue and 63rd street in New York City in 1965 and featured the now
familiar red and white stripes. Inside were wooden floors, Tiffany lamps, bentwood chairs and striped tablecloths.
Decor has become a key element in the T.G.I. Friday’s experience, transforming an otherwise bland and boring
industrial-type building into a theatrical stage. For T.G.I. Friday’s interior decor, a full-time antique ‘picker’
travels extensively to auctions and flea markets. Memorabilia have to be authentic and, if possible, unique to the
area where a new restaurant would be located. T.G.I. Friday’s offers ‘mass customisation’ in which the company
provides a basically standard service to all customers, but the customers can personalise their meal through an
extensive range of menu permutations.

The company’s approach to managing the service encounter distinguishes between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ elements. Hard
elements include core service processes and tangible elements of the product offer, such as car parking
facilities, the menu offered and target service times. The fundamental design of T.G.I. restaurants is remarkably
similar throughout the world, with a large central bar with dining facilities surrounding the bar and authentic
American decorative memorabilia. Even the location of the toilets is standard, and an American guest visiting the
T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant in Coventry would immediately know where to look for them. Red and white stripes
awnings, wooden floors, Tiffany lampshades, cane chairs and striped tablecloths create an aura of the American
bar/diner. Each restaurant offers a range of approximately 100 American/ Mexican food menu items and approximately
the same number of cocktails. Service target times form part of the ‘hard’ element of the service encounter and
the company requires that starters should be served within 7 minutes of receipt of a customer’s orders. A computer
program helps managers to monitor the achievement of these service times. The hard elements of the service
encounter tend to be specified by head office and brand managers are expected to achieve specified standards. Menu
and the product range are designed and priced centrally at head office.

However, it is the ‘soft’ elements of the service encounter that distinguish T.G.I. Friday’s from its competitors.
Crucial to the distinction is the empowering of employees to take whatever actions they see fit in order to
improve customers’ experience. Employee performance requires, therefore, more than the traditional acts of
greeting, seating and serving customers. Employees have to be able to provide both the behaviours and the
emotional displays to match with customers’ feelings. Getting serving staff to join in a chorus of ‘Happy
Birthday’ may not be easy to script, but spontaneous singing when a meal is served to a group of diners
celebrating a birth day can make all the difference in customers’ experience of their meal. Of course, recruitment
of the right kind of people becomes crucial and perspective candidates are selected as for their sense of fun as
on the strength of their CV. Initial interviews take the form of ‘auditions’ in which potential recruits are set
individual and group tasks to test their personality type. Opportunities are given for trained staff to express
their personality and individuality, for example by wearing outlandish clothes that make a statement about their
personality.

T.G.I. Friday’s has become a preferred place of employment for restaurant staff, who have enjoyed relatively good
working conditions, above-average earnings for the sector-especially when tips are taken into account- and a sense
of fun while at work. The chain has won numerous awards as a good employer, including the UK’s fifteenth best
workplace according to the Financial Times (FT) 2004 Survey of Best Places to Work, and the only restaurant chain
to be included on the list for a second year running. It was also the fourth most fun place to work according to
the FT.

In the pattern of service encounters developed by T.G.I. Friday’s a sustainable business model? Among the
portfolio of restaurant formats operated by Whitbread plc, T.G.I. Friday’s has been a star performer, in contrast
to some of its more traditional formats such as Beefeater, which have become less popular with customers. A glance
of the customer review site www.ciao.co.uk provides an insight into customers’ experience of the service
encounter. Overall, contributors seem to be happy with the format, although a number of people observed that
service standards could decline when a restaurant becomes very busy. It may be fine for serving staff to sing to
customers when times are quiet, but how can they do this and still meet their service delivery –time targets when
the restaurant is busy? A number of customers also commented on very high prices charged by T.G.I. Friday’s, with
more than one person describing them as ‘rip-off prices’. But, in order to get the best staff who can create a
memorable experience, is it worth paying a little more and passing this on to customers as high prices?
Questions

Using the information form the case study and your own research, answer the following question:

1. What are the connections between theatre and T.G.I. Friday’s? Is the dramaturgical
analogy a good one? Why?

2. What is meant by a critical incident? How can T.G.I. Friday’s identify what
constitutes a critical incident and assess whether it has achieved customer
satisfaction?

3. Analyse the service interaction process at T.G.I. Friday’s based on the following
concepts/models: ‘blueprinting’, ‘servicescapes’,’ cyberscape’ ’servuction’,
‘service experience’, ‘service quality’ and ‘service failure/recovery’.

4. Evaluate the different types of service technologies used by T.G.I. Friday’s. How
successful was T.G.I. Friday’s Social Media Campaign?
Source: Palmer, A. (2011) Principles of Services Marketing, 6th Edition, McGraw-
Hill, pp.46-86.

Essential reading
Lashley, C. (2000) ‘Empowerment through involvement: a case study of TGI Friday’s
restaurants’, Personnel Review, 29 (6), 791-815.
Skordoulis, R.T. (2005) ‘TGI Friday’s, UK: A Case of Innovation’, Corporate
Reputation Review, 8(1), 73-79.
Wang, K-C, et al (2004) ‘The effect of WebPages on customer satisfaction: a
restaurant case study’, Advances in Hospitality and Leisure, 1,217-229.

 

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