These blog ideas start from personal experiences either good or bad (although as I type this, I’m realizing I don’t think I’ve written on many positive experiences. I’ll have to make a point of doing a great experience for the next one!). My goal is not to just write about the experience but to find what’s at its core and how it could be shared and made into a positive concept that can be replicated. I usually don’t know what the transferrable lesson will be until I go through the exercise of writing about it. Often, I find that the lesson lies in one of the 11 concepts written about in the first blog, which can be read here: www.fabservice.net/blog/giving-fab-service
With that thought in mind, a recent experience I had at my favorite pizza joint was relatable to other experiences I’ve had in and outside my businesses, and I think we can all relate.
The evening started out great with a very friendly waitress engaging in conversation which always makes dining out more enjoyable. Keep in mind, this is a pizza place so expectations aren’t very high. We placed our order and then waited for the pizza. And waited…and waited…and waited..and waited…
What does our friendly waitress do while we look around for her?
She hides.
She doesn’t come over and explain why it’s taking so long or offer to apologize. Instead, she avoids us, assuming (correctly) that we are not happy waiting an inordinate amount of time for pizza which is the only thing they serve!
As I thought about this concept of hiding, it reminded me of 2 funny experiences outside my business which I’ll try to describe briefly.
Hiding from conflict
The first was my neighbor’s young daughter, Mary C, who was a young high schooler and working at a local bagel shop. It was just an outlet and the bagels were made elsewhere so there was a limited supply. One busy Sunday morning, they ran out of bagels early and Mary C. didn’t know what to do so she hid beneath the counter. The door was open so customers came in and looked all around but didn’t see Mary C. hiding behind the counter (not much different from the waitress at the pizza place).
Another story was about a girl I knew in college and who was a waitress at a fancy restaurant. One night while she was still in training, she had an uppity couple who ordered some fancy drinks. For some reason, the drink order got lost and they sat there waiting. When the drinks were finally ready, Becky rushes to get them to the customers and spilled the drinks on the well dressed customers! Horrified, she goes into the kitchen and hides telling her manager she can’t take this job. The experienced manager talks her off the ledge and having seen this sort of thing before coaches her to go back out there and say “and now for my encore…” and give them the drinks for free.
“And now for my encore…”
Becky goes back to the front line, says the line her manager taught her “and now for my encore…” and as she’s saying this, felt a sneeze coming on and turns her back to the customers. Trying not to spill the drinks and hold the sneeze in at the same time causes poor Becky to flagellate loudly in her customer’s face! (true story!)
I think we all agree, Becky deserved the night off after that! However, her manager had it right. In service, you need to find a way through difficult situations and win the customer over. Most people are understanding if you talk to them, explain the situation, AND give them something to show you care.
At Fabricare, we’ve learned that our most loyal customers are the ones where we’ve had some kind of problem and handled it beyond their expectations. Heck, if there weren’t any problems in business, customer service would be easy and every business would be great.
I’ll end this with a little trivia. What’s the most common command in the bible?
“Be not afraid.” (or some version of it)
If it’s used hundreds of times in the most popular book ever sold, it’s good enough for customer service as well!