A Wonderful Example of Customer Service
Today I witnessed a customer service miracle in action. While I was waiting for my son's and my food at local eatery. A woman angrily approached the counter with a crushed Styrofoam cup. She said, "This cup fell off of our table and broke, and now there is huge mess.
It was then that right before my eyes a customer service miracle occurred. By the way the staff never heard the words "thank you" from that customer, yet they acted as if they had each step of the way.
The first employees she spoke to smiled warmly said “certainly ma’am” and immediately got her another drink. Another employee over heard the customer and walk up and told her he would be happy to clean up the spilled drink. He as well, did so right away and with a smile. Then when the customer was leaving another employee warmly smiled and told her “we looked forward to serving her again”.
Not really a surprise to see the place is almost always busy. The restaurant is clean, the management supports our community by donating to local causes, the food is better than most fast food, and most of all, the people that work there make you really want to come back.
Watching customer service interaction is my hobby and was my work for almost 10 years, and today's experience was a living, breathing example of the 18 Rules for Excellent Restaurant Customer Service that I used to teach my employess. Most of them are not that hard to follow. However, they can be hard to follow consistently.
Take a look at the list and ask yourself how closely you follow the rules if you work with customers in restaurants.
1. Smile when greeting a customer in person and on the phone (and yes, they can tell if you are smiling over the telephone!).
2. Use age-appropriate greetings, and avoid referring to older customers and women as "guys.".
3. Be proactive and ask how you may be of service.
4. Stay available and visible, but don't hover.
5. Don't turn away, walk away, start to make a phone call, or duck beneath the counter as a customer approaches. (We've all had it happen to us.).
6. The live customer standing in front of you takes precedence over someone who calls on the phone.
7. Never judge a book by its cover-- all customers deserve attention regardless of their age or appearance.
8. Leave food and beverages in the break room or kitchen.
9. A customer doesn't want to hear about your upcoming break.
10. Only make personal calls when you're on a break and out of earshot.
11. The correct answer is never "I don't know" unless you add to it, "but I can find out for you.".
12. Go to the kitchen and try to find out if a customer can get something not on the menu.
13. Offer to ask the chef or, host or management.
14. Learn to read body language to see if a customer could use some help.
15. Be discrete if a customer's credit card is declined by asking if there is another method of payment he or she would like to use.
16. Never discuss customers in front of other customers (they'll wonder what you're saying about them.
17. Inspect the dish you are bringing to your customer, if you don’t like the presentation chances are the client won’t either.
18. Smile as you are saying goodbye and encourage the customer to come again.
And here's one more tip: if you can, give people more than what they expect.
