Tag: compliance audit

What kind of an impact will the new health care laws have on customer dining out experiences?

As restaurants adjust to new laws on healthcare for employees who work more than 30 hours per week, managers will juggle employee schedules and budgets even more so than in the past. The restaurant industry's reliance on part time workers ensures that the industry will feel a big impact when the new law comes into play in 2014. Some restaurants, such as Darden Restaurants, whose concepts includes Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, will reassess the number of employees who will receive health benefits within the law and determine ways to manage the increased benefits costs . Other restaurants, such as Panera, say that for now, they have no plans to adjust employee hours because of the new law. Still others worry about the ability to afford good people in order to provide good service at their restaurants.

Several restaurants are preparing now. Darden Restaurants is currently testing the limiting of staff hours at some locations. No doubt, management will evaluate

In two recent cases, the U.S. government used mystery shopping techniques to audit what individual consumers were told during one-on-one interactions. These cases highlight the consequences of giving inaccurate or incomplete information to customers. Auditing the information given to customers could have perhaps helped these companies avoid the costly consequences of wrongdoing or unintentional misrepresentation.  
 

Over the years, we’ve been asked to conduct research with some very specific and interesting requirements.   For example, Confero recruited smokers with specific types of health insurance policies in order to test and compare the effectiveness of public quit smoking hotlines.  Often times, it’s not the project itself that is the most difficult for us, but the tight time frame that is the most challenging.  Here are some examples: