What Happened to Great Customer Service?

One late afternoon this week I went out to meet a friend for happy hour. We picked a spot we hadn't been to for months; it's the kind of place that suits winter better - Italian comfort food. The last time we were there it was really good; delicious, fresh food served by well-trained, very professional staff and the bill didn't sting our eyes when we looked at the total. And so, we came back.

This time was a totally different experience.

I arrived first so I was shown to a table in the back of the room, right beside the only other occupied table in the whole restaurant. Why do servers do that? I worked in restaurants for two decades and I don't ever remember one single manager telling me to sit tables right beside the only other table, it's weird... and awkward (my word for this is "awk-weird"). And when you're the only 2 tables in the whole very quiet place it's like you're actually part of the other table; you can hear everything they say, see what they're eating, and doing, and every time the server comes over your own experience is interrupted by whatever is happening next door.

Couple this with the world's loudest staff.

Our server was LOUD! Her stadium-volume was totally inappropriate for the dark serenity of the room and she had no capacity to come and go with anything but what could be described as hurricane-force, no thought given to timing, interruption and overstaying the visit to the table. She burst out laughing at everything too, and this, of course, was also done with huge volume. If this was 2021 we'd call her a "super-spreader" with all her aspirations lol. She finally left the table with my drink order, giving me my peace back... but not really; she went over to the bar and proceeded to have the loudest-ever conversation with the bartender and another staff member whom I would much later find out was the 23-year old manager. I know her age because on one of her visits to another nearby table I could hear her tell that to the customers there as she (way too loudly) told them her life story, which felt like 23 years to me. I had no option but to sit there listening to the loud and unwelcomed chatter. Shortly before we left this restaurant, my friend and I had the "pleasure" of a visit from her but by then we were so tired of the intrusive service experiences that we kind of dismissed her and, quite surprisingly to us, she took the hint and didn't stick around for any length of time.

My friend arrived after my drink did and she was greeted by our server as though they were long-lost sisters, the exuberance was wildly inappropriate and again, so awk-weird! My poor friend looked so uncomfortable that it made me laugh out loud. It was like that for the entire 2 hours we were there and every time one of the loud-staff came and went we had yet another reason to roll our eyes.

I don't think we're going to hurry back there.

We probably could have overlooked the fact that the food quality had gone downhill. While the portions were noticeably smaller than when we last visited this used-to-be-cool spot, the prices had now swelled to a place of mild irritation. This too, could have been excused by our commitment to support local regardless of the upwardly soaring price of dining out everywhere. But what removes that spot from my priority list was the shockingly poor training of the server and her manager, both of whom displayed a total lack of self-awareness.

A Lesson in Customer Service: Less is More.

I'm reminded of a review I got once, from some guests at my B&B. I included the review in my book; you'll see it there with a bunch of other "bullshit" reviews, as I called them (yes, I'm laughing at my own errors!)... A customer basically suggested that I spend less time with the guests, which I never understood. It's a B&B so you're going to see me making and serving your breakfast, and they did. It's also kind of the point of a B&B, isn't it? You're staying in the host's home, where they live, so you're probably going to see them around the place; if you wanted no contact then why wouldn't you go with a vacation rental or a hotel/motel instead?

Anyway, I'm pretty confident that, unlike the happy-hour restaurant staff, I was not "intrusive", and made damn sure that nobody could accuse me of "too much interaction" EVER again. Customer Service is a bit of an art, serving tables in a restaurant is hard and both require skills that include editing your everyday personality, biting your tongue, showing restraint and understanding that less is more. The blame lies wholly on the General Manager who really should be spending a little more time on training and a little less time on figuring out ways to cut spending... Ironically, the spending that will be cut there will be mine in that business.

Perhaps there's another book in this thought-train, how about a customer service training manual from yours truly!? Wink-wink lol.