Hiring a Consultant?
Choosing a restaurant consulting firm or a restaurant consultant is a critical decision on the part of the owner since the consultant is the person who will draw the plan of action for the restaurant and set things in motion. Here are a few things to take in mind while making a decision.
Freelancer Restaurant Consultant vs Restaurant Consulting Firm
Anybody can become a restaurant consultant overnight with a bit of experience in this field and start advertising the services he/she will provide. Whereas in the case of restaurant consulting firm, it is not a one man show. They have a highly trained and able team members that will work together to get you the results you need to meet and exceed your expectations. Moreover it is easier for a client to search their work references as a registered firm will typically have a decent portfolio. To summarize it in one line, “Team efforts always dominate the individual efforts.”
Versatility Of Staff and Client Satisfaction
A restaurant consultant firm has a team where you have a specific person assigned to specific task and you are not bound to just one person as in the case of a casual restaurant consultant. What this means is, if you are not satisfied with the performance of any one of those team members, you can ask for the replacement of that specific person. Whereas in the case of hiring just a restaurant consultant, you are bound to a single person. If you are not satisfied, only option your are left with is to hire another consultant. Moreover when the work load is shared between a group of people, everyone works more efficiently in comparison to handling all the tasks at same time. This way a firm always gets the upper hand over an individual restaurant consultant as per the client satisfaction goes.
Fee Charges For The Project
Just before hiring any consultant, just do a small research on the fees to be charged by the freelancer and registered firms providing the same services. You will come to know that there is a huge variation in fee charges of a freelancer individual than that of the firms. This happens because all the firms are charging almost the same with a bit of variation as they have a set of individual assigned for the task and the money distribution remains same. While the individual charges have the fluctuation and charge you way less than a firm because they won’t be able to provide you that much services and the share is not going to get distributed with anyone.
Restaurant Consulting Firm Experience In the Field
Another thing that matters is the confidence and experience in the consulting field. Though there are many experienced freelancers out there, but they can’t match the confidence, experience and versatility of a restaurant consulting firm. This is because of the versatility of a think tank. The more people, the more minds working on the project, the more flow of ideas and discussions. Whereas in the case individual restaurant consultant, there will be only one mind working at a time. So the number of ideas and innovation get limited to a certain extent. So the 10 year experience of an individual consultant is always less than the 10 year experience of a consulting firm because of the limited think tank.
Clarity Of Thoughts And Procedure
Another thing that sets apart both of them is the clarity of thoughts and procedure to follow. As in the case of restaurant consulting firm, the assigned individual will have the clarity of thoughts and procedure that he/she needs to follow as the person is assigned specifically for that task. He/She need not to do any multi-tasking. Lesser the multi-tasking burden, more is the efficiency. As simple as that. Where as the individual consultant has to manage all the aspect of project, for some of which he/she is pioneer and for some of them he might be lacking. So when the project proceed, things start to get twisted and with time the individual lacks the management of the tasks.
Communication Gap
If you assign a single person to do all the task of the projects and side by side he/she has to handle the communication with the client as well. He/She may get frustrated and that will put him/her under enormous pressure and take the multi-tasking to the next level. In the case of consulting firm, the pressure of work is divided between the individuals and you get a specifically assigned person to listen to your needs. Its just like if you need to talk to a technical person, he/she will come up with his or her thoughts, which won’t be easy to understand for you and it will keep on increasing the communication gap and reducing the satisfaction level.
Written Agreement With Consultant or Consulting Firm
In the end, whatever choice you make, whether to go for a restaurant consulting firm or individual consultant, just never skip this step ever. Just have the written agreement with the firm or individual you are going to get consultation from, regarding the goals to achieve, time duration, fee they going to charge, responsibility of both the parties etc to have the clear vision of the project. I hope this blog will resolve all the queries regarding the choice of going for restaurant consulting firm or just for restaurant consultant. Read from our services page related to the restaurant kitchen design and layout and restaurant consultant services to get an over-review review prior to project. Cheers!!!
Make sure to view our other restaurant consultant related blog posts:
- The Benefits of Hiring Restaurant Consulting Firms
- Considered Using Commercial Kitchen Consultants?
- Choosing a Restaurant Design Team Article
- How to Select a Restaurant or Hotel Kitchen Design Firm
- How We Create Profit Centers with Efficient Restaurant Kitchen Design
- Commercial Restaurant Kitchen Design and Layout Philosophy
- Running a Restaurant | Health Department Question