For me, customer service is often a ‘make or break’ issue.
A couple of months back my wife and I went to the Dupont Circle Cosi in Washington DC during a day out together. Before I even had my food I had decided I would never go there again.
The restaurant is one where you go down the line, ordering the different items you would like. My first server at the ‘sandwich station’ did not smile or greet me. He asked what I wanted in a tone the conveyed I was bothering him. Of course people have bad days so I ordered and moved on.
I slid down to the ‘soup station,’ which was unattended. I waited. No one came. Servers did walk past occasionally and did even look at me, but not one smiled, greeted me or asked if I needed help. Eventually I left without ordering soup and went to the cashier.
The cashier took my list, without smiling or greeting me, and rang up my total. I paid and took my little table sign with its number that allows a server to find us. That was when I decided I’d never come back again.
My wife then returned to the counter to get water (I had been so preoccupied by the bad service that I forgot) and returned to the table perplexed. People had been milling around the ordering area so my wife asked if the food was brought to our table or if we picked it up at the counter. The response was something like ‘you get it over there, where all those other people are.‘ (Just imagine the italized section spoken with an ‘it’s so obvious’ attitude.)
I returned to the server with my table card in hand. Here’s a summary:
Me: (Direct) So you just told my wife that we pick our food up at the counter over there.
Server: (On guard) Um, yeah.
Me: So, even though this card says that the food will be brought to our table (pointing to the words on the card that say exactly that) we’re supposed to go pick up our food over there.
Server: (Defensive) You can talk to the manager if you want.
I did get our food and it was fine. I scanned around for a manager while we ate and think I saw her (a woman was working in a more formal outfit), but since she frowned more than anyone else I wrote off any conversation as pointless.
It really doesn’t take much to smile, to treat another human being with care. True success, the win-win kind, will come to those who realize the importance of customer service and work it into the fabric of their daily lives.
