When I was in England, I encountered waiters who I swear trained at the Basil Fawlty school of hospitality... plates thrown on the table and everything was too much trouble. At the time, I thought it was hilarious.
Maybe I've been watching Kitchen Nightmares too much, but I'm less inclined to accept sloppy service in restaurants these days. Okay, mistakes can happen and it's busy in the kitchen. I understand that.
Here's a simple example of how small business owners often miss opportunities to put things right. Today, I ordered soup which came with parmesan toast.
When it was served, the soup was placed on the table with no communication at all from the waitress - no eye contact, no smile, no acknowlegement and off she went.
Not sterling customer service, but no dramas. Then, I looked at the toast. Burnt. Charred. Black all over. Completely inedible.
Gordon Ramsay or any other self respecting restauranter would not have let completely burnt toast go out of the kitchen. This is more about the customer service ethic than the actual toast.
When I asked if it would be possible to replace the toast, she treated me as if I was causing her a problem. Again, she said nothing and took the toast. She returned about 10 minutes later with fresh toast. I thanked her, but she just walked off.
Not a major deal - just an observation on
- no pride in serving a quality product
- a lost opportunity to apologize if an unfortunate oversight
- being friendly to customers and making them feel welcome
- a lost opportunity for customer recovery
Again, the toast was just a minor example to illustrate my point. But I wonder how many customers are lost just from things that could so easily have been fixed - maybe just a smile, an apology and an offer to set things right.
Basic customer service and courtesy doesn't take a lot.
- What examples of good or bad customer service have you come across?
- How do you train your small business staff to take care of the little things with customer service?
© Customer Service Image courtesy of Yvonne Russell at Grow Your Writing Business.com
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