Great Customer Service Is Not Like Goldilocks…

Last weekend Jayne and I ventured interstate for a night away. We left early Saturday morning and arrived at our hotel at lunchtime, where we intended to have a sit down lunch before venturing out to a booked engagement in the afternoon.

The restaurant where we ate was about fifty percent booked with diners. However, they made some frightfully poor customer service decisions that left Jayne and me scratching our heads as to what was going on.

Firstly, for a restaurant that was half empty, we found that our meals took over forty minutes to arrive at our table after being ordered. In fact the service of the meal was so slow, that a second round of pre-dinner drinks needed to be ordered.

Interestingly, at the end of our meal, after we had finished eating, our plates were not cleared from our table, and nor were we asked if we would like a dessert menu to review.

In fact, while we sat with our dirty plates in front of us, staff chose to clear plates away at adjoining tables where diners had finished and had already left the building.

This was exactly how slow the service really was.

There certainly did appear to be sufficient wait staff.

What there certainly was not was accountability. There was a definite lack of accountability shown towards the dining customers by the waitstaff on duty.

In fact, several times we noticed diners having to wave towards waitstaff standing at the counter to gain their attention. And we never saw one member of staff “walking the restaurant floor” checking that everything was going OK for the diners.

In fact, the service systems were so poor and lacking, even after one of us had been to the restroom and back after dining, the empty plates were still on our table.

When I went over to the counter to pay my bill, there was also a lack of system or protocol in whether they should have been serving me [a departing customer] or greeting and attending to a guest who had arrived early for their booking.

In contrast:

In contrast, that same evening, Jayne and I dined with two friends at a very upmarket Japanese restaurant [where both Jayne and I (and our companions) had previously dined before on occasions].

When we arrived at this restaurant we were seated at a table for four in the main restaurant. The restaurant also had an area available for counter dining, as well as some “semi-private” dining booths.

One of our companions mentioned to our waitress that this booking was a special occasion, and asked whether one of the private booths was available for us… to our surprise we were ushered into a private room… [not a booth].

The trouble with being in a private room [at some restaurants] is that you can sometimes be forgotten in there if the main part of the restaurant is busy.

For us, on this night, that was not the case.

Our waitstaff delivered an incredible dining experience of ten or twelve dishes that accommodated the dietary requirements of all of our party.

Our wine was decanted and our wine glasses were never empty.

And at the end of the evening, one of the shared desserts came with a birthday candle for that member of our party who was celebrating a significant birthday.

The difference was…

The difference between these two dining experiences [lunch and dinner] was that at the second restaurant, the staff had their eyes on the ball at all times and this reflected in the high level of customer service they provided to us to make our evening very memorable.

And the staff there were able to EASILY make it even more enjoyable than we had expected it to be.

The staff certainly went ABOVE AND BEYOND to make sure that we all were looked after. The service was caring and attentive, and the food was first class.

Customer Service Is Not….

Delivering World Class Customer Service is not a HIT AND MISS exercise that sometimes gets things right, but sometimes fails to deliver.

Delivering World Class Customer Service is not like Goldilocks choosing between three different types of mattresses [too soft, too hard, and just right]

Delivering World Class Customer Service is about delivering an experience that meets and exceeds your customers’ expectations for each and every customer, each and every time they visit your place of business.

No matter who they are, and no matter how many times they have been coming to you for their business.

Delivering World Class Customer Service is about going ABOVE AND BEYOND for every customer as much as you can each and every time you do business with them.

And when you do that, and when your customers realise and appreciate that you and your team have made the efforts, that’s when your business truly becomes a FIVE STAR Customer Service organisation.

*****

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