How do I know if staff greet people in the first 30 seconds?
“Did anyone say hello?” is a floor question, not a surveillance score. The first half-minute after someone walks in is when they decide the shop is open for them or not. You can check that without watching the door all day.
Short answer
Write down what counts as a greet in your shop: eye contact and a word, a nod and “be with you in a minute,” or walking over. Then look at a handful of real arrivals — you on the floor for a short stretch, or a short camera playback of the door at a busy time. Coach the person who owns the door that shift. Do not turn it into a secret tally of who failed.
Decide what “greet” means here
A greet is not the same in every small shop. A counter service spot can acknowledge someone while the machine is running. A floor shop can greet from the aisle. If you have not named it, staff will guess, and you will argue about a feeling.
- Acknowledgement counts even when you cannot serve yet. Silence while you finish a task is what people read as “ignore me.”
- The first person who can see the door owns it for that moment, including a busy senior.
- A script is optional. A habit is not. “Hi, I’ll be right with you” is enough.
- The 30 seconds is your standard, the window you mean by “when they walk in,” not a lab measurement. You are checking whether the habit happens early, not scoring milliseconds.
How to check without living on the cameras
- Stand the door for part of a rush and watch arrivals. You will see who looks up.
- If you are off-site, play back a short door clip from a known busy period. A few arrivals tell you more than an hour of live view.
- Ask the shift lead what they think happened, then compare with what you saw. The gap is the coaching.
- Separate greet from everything else. People who leave after they have already been served are a different problem. Early walk-outs are the greet and the queue signal: customers leaving immediately after walking in.
Coach the door, then the rest of service
Tell the team the standard in plain language, practise it on a quiet stretch, and mention it again after you have watched a real rush. Praise a clean acknowledgement. If nobody owns the door because everyone is in the back, that is a role problem, not a personality problem.
Broader service habits: improve customer service in a retail store and improve customer service in a coffee shop. A short training wedge for counter staff: barista customer service training. If you are checking this while you are away, pair it with a named lead rather than a live feed: run a cafe without being there. Camera use stays a coaching tool, and in Australia the notice questions sit in can employers use CCTV to monitor staff in Australia — high-level, not legal advice.
See the door, then coach the greet
SoraData soft-connects cameras you already run so greeting and door moments are easier to review when you coach the shift. Request a trial or view plans when it fits.