Customer Service - It's the little things...


The first hint that it was going to be a challenging evening on the service front came when my cousin ordered a $13 glass of wine and what arrived was an incredibly small portion. My cousin asked in a friendly tone “are you sure this is the correct amount?” The waitress replied in a surly tone “It sure is. Besides, YOU ordered it!”

A little while later as the main courses began to arrive, the waitress didn’t bother removing the empty appetizer dishes. We eventually cleared them ourselves to an adjacent table that happened to be empty.

The main courses were, of course, served to the wrong people, but we made the exchanges across the table to set things right.

A while later, the waitress poured scalding hot coffee on the foot of my cousin’s husband and barely managed to murmur an apology.

But the coup de grace was the arrival of the bill. We asked for the bill to be split 50/50. Instead, my cousin received a bill for her 50% while we received one for 100%. Now I’d like to believe this was simply “human error” but another possibility exists… Whether intentional or not, when we asked for our bill to be adjusted, our waitress acted as if it was no big deal and actually harrumphed a bit as if we were being a terrible bother.

Needless to say, we won’t be going back – despite the fact that the food was excellent.

How could this same situation have played out differently? Here’s how:
1. When we murmured about the small portion of the wine, the server could have smiled graciously, agreed that it did appear a bit small, and then poured in an extra ounce or two. Total cost to the restaurant – near zero. Impact on our satisfaction – big.
2. When the server realized she forgot to clear the appetizer dishes, she could simply have acknowledged the error and made a simple apology.
3. When pouring scaling hot coffee on my friend, she could have displayed some genuine human concern and asked if there was anything she could do to help. There wasn’t; but the concern would have been appreciated.
4. Assuming the over-charge on the bill was accidental, a genuine expression of regret would have been nice, and an offer of a free coffee, desert, whatever to compensate for the error would have gone miles to helping us give the benefit of the doubt.

If any of the above actions had been taken, there’s a good chance we would be returning to the restaurant. If all of them had been taken, we would definitely be returning – and would likely be recommending it to others. “To err is human. To make amends divine.”