Served with A Slice of Life

Hippo Eats Dwarf: Bangkok

A hippopotamus swallowed a circus dwarf in a "freak accident" in northern Thailand, according to a columnist in the Pattay Mail.

The Grapevine column reported: "A circus dwarf, nicknamed Od, died recently when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus waiting to appear in the next act."

"Vets said Hilda the Hippo had a gag reflex which caused her to swallow. More than 1000 spectators continued to applaud wildly until they realised there had been a tragic mistake."

The Secret Service - it's exceptional

Yesterday I described the exceptional service my brother experienced at Tarrant Keynston in Dorset. So, how does an establishment such as The True Lover’s Knot achieve providing its customers with exceptional service?

Once you’ve mastered good service, exceptional service may well be your goal. This really will make your customers feel great, ensuring they repeatedly visit your business, whatever goods or services you provide. Furthermore they will promote your business for you, telling other people how good you are. Why will they do this? Well, because they will feel confident that people they recommend will receive service of a similar high quality, because they feel the culture is ingrained. This will enable them to feel sure they are indirectly offering their friends and colleagues the chance to feel great too, via your service attentions, and most people will feel good about themselves if they make their friends happy. After that, everyone likes to be associated at some level with quality and success, and if you offer exceptional service the likelihood is that you successfully offer a product or service of quality.

So, a few words to understand exceptional service:

“Exceptional service is _ _ _”.  If it’s any help, only the fourth word in the sentence changes from good service. The other five words remain the same, in the same order.

Inn Love with Exceptional Service

Would you like one of our homemade desserts?” she asked.
“I really shouldn’t so please tell me they are all disgusting!”
“I’d love to, but I’m a woman so all sweets are fantastic!” she replied. “If it’s any help, you’ll hate the chocolate pudding!”
My brother laughed, declined the chocolate pudding and thanked her.
 
I tell this tale as he told it to me about a pub he recently visited. He was impressed by the confidence, knowledge, training and humour of the young waitress who served him. He also noted that when he got up to use the boy’s room, the bartender, who had moved from behind the bar to clear glasses, quickly returned to the bar with a smile, just in case my brother was headed that way for more drinks. Once my brother passed by, he came out from behind the bar again to continue tidying up the empties.
 
The food was good but not exceptional and the staff young, yet they were well trained and motivated. He had a wonderful evening and will go again. Indeed before he left, he was prompted to seek out the landlord to tell him how impressed he’d been and to thank him. He spoke to the lady who seemed to be running things. She thanked him and said she would pass on his thanks, but tonight was the landlord’s night off! He left even more impressed.
 
So, did my brother experience exceptional service? Yes, simply because it was not the norm - to the degree that he felt moved to speak to the management to thank them. I’ve not been to this pub yet – it’s a bit off my usual patch - but I will be going on my brother’s recommendation. The service bar has been raised. Might I be disappointed if the service is not as slick and friendly as I’m led to expect? Yes I might, but somehow I think I won’t be.  Perhaps you might give it a try too.
 
THE TRUE LOVER’S  KNOT at Tarrant Keynston,  Dorset.

 

The round robin annual newsletter syndrome

People blog for many different reasons. For me, it was born out of frustration at poor service (so this is therapy!) and from friends telling me that I inadvertently set myself up in situations that would make a funny book. I suspect most lives would make funny reading in parts and the humour my friends find may well be down to knowing me personally. Others may not be quite so amused! But if only one person reads this and learns something useful about customer service or has a laugh at my expense, then two of us will have got something out of it!
 
Besides, blogs create debate and social interaction. I like the fact that people can dip in and out if they are interested, but it's their choice. My brother read my blog and said “What’s the point of your blog?”. He feels blogs can be a bit like the annual Christmas round robin letter. My elderly parents receive these each year from friends of years gone by. The letters take two forms. Firstly, the depressing ones; these tell of who has died this year or had a minor or serious illness and how few of the old gang are still around. Secondly, the depressing ones; these tell of how good looking, healthy, charming, popular, successful, intelligent, sexy, wealthy, well travelled, fulfilled  et cetera their children and/or grandchildren are. We should care about our friends and Christmas is a time of family, friends and caring. But do we really need this type of newsletter at that time? Which leads to my brother’s comment: do we really need this blog?
 
Well, ‘need’ can be a subjective matter, and my brother and I have now had lengthy conversations about what benefits blogging might bring to his business, and how he could implement a blog that really was useful in some way to his customers. Furthermore, he was prompted to tell me of his own recent experience of exceptional customer service. It is reassuring to know it’s out there somewhere.

The error of my own ways!

I recently commented in "Do you want ketchup with that?" that I'd not complained or said anything when I should have. Indeed if you don't complain when the situation deserves then things never improve, and improvement in how I am treated  and made to feel is what I am seeking when I complain.

I subsequently went back to my local pub to speak with the landlord. I wanted him to know what had happened and why I felt sufficiently strongly to write a blog about it. Though deeply disappointed, he accepted my comments, made me aware of what he plans to do about it. Subsequently, the investor I referred to has commented on my blog, and I'm grateful for his response too. Indeed both the Landlord's and Investor's response has already gone some way to restoring my faith in what they are trying to achieve. I wish them well, and indeed will give them another chance to impress me in the future.

In the meantime, I was wrong not to say something. It was an error. I'm glad I reconsidered and did speak with the people who needed to know of my grievance. They've earned the chance to win my business back.

If you are ever in the same situation, you must complain. Give the business the chance to learn from the disappointment they have caused you. Companies that really care will make every effort to ensure they resolve your complaint to YOUR satisfaction. If they handle the complaint well, demonstrating the care and concern to ensure you are satisfied, then they may win you back as an advocate of their business for years to come. If they don't make the effort to do that, then they probably don't deserve your custom.

"Do you want ketchup with that?" Yes I do!

Yesterday I wrote about some of the problems of eating at my local pub. The really frustrating thing is the problems of my experience are simple matters to resolve, but make a huge difference to the customer.

We all know when we’ve had acceptable levels of service. We all know when we’ve had good, or even exceptional service, as well as poor service. It needn’t cost the earth either. You don’t always have to pay through the nose for good or even exceptional service, although the more you pay the greater your expectation of good service.

Good service is important because it helps validate each of us as individuals, making us subconsciously feel good about ourselves – someone we don’t know wants to make us feel important. Fantastic! That’s what makes us go back to the same places again. This feeling of satisfaction can be immense. Oh and by the way, good service is EASY. It requires very little effort. Once you know and understand what good service is and that it makes the recipient feel good about themselves, providing good service happens almost instinctively.

Instil an understanding of what your customer wants, a little pride in your job and add a little, but hugely important, training. This is easier said than done, but keep in mind that the customer “wants” are at least in part dictated by the image your business portrays. If you are not clear about what you are offering, then neither will your staff and customers, and the likelihood of creating a situation of dissatisfaction is significantly increased. I believe this is at the root of the problem at my local – the management and staff are not as one about why they are building, what they are trying to achieve, what image they are portraying. Focus on the small details that make a difference to your customers at a PERSONAL level. First impressions are vitally important, but a new car park is not as important to me as decent service and being treated as an individual. New signs and décor are not as important to me as a clean, fully functional toilet where there are no broken tiles and the hand dryers work!


Make sure your staff know why these small details are important. A well trained staff will be a much smaller, happier and productive crew than a poorly trained crew. To me, these details said so much, suggesting poor training, poor hygiene, low standards, and a lack of concern about me, the customer. They also made me feel I was paying too much for the product. I know from the landlord’s attitude that he cares. So is he not seeing the problem? I'm sure his till revenues tell the real story.

I can tell you in just a few words what constitutes good service. It’s not complicated as an idea/concept nor in principle. Converting that concept into actions is a touch more tricky, but as I’ve already said, much of it comes instinctively once you understand the concept. Let me assure you that once you understand those few words, dealing with the detail which makes the difference between average and good service becomes so much easier.

Those few words are:

“Good service is _ _  _”. OK there are three words missing and if you read the blog carefully you’ll find hints throughout my solutions as to what those words might be. But to give you the answer so early on in my blog would be selling myself short! You’ll just have to wait. Or write and ask me!

“Do you want ketchup with that?”

Tonight it happened; the single event that prompted me to finally commit to two things. Firstly, to get this blog under way after much procrastination. Secondly, and with deep regret, to stop eating at my local pub and to drink there less often. This is despite the friendly personalities and huge efforts of the landlord and owners. I just don’t need to expose myself to the stress involved in eating and drinking there. I want to relax and enjoy myself, but it simply doesn’t happen.

The pub is a great building in the heart of the village and only two hundred metres from my home. It’s a character building and the landlord is a character too. A highly entertaining raconteur, he is eager to please each and every one of his guests. I say “guests” as I believe that is how he sees his customers. He’s a wonderful host who always says hello and always has a way to give you a laugh.

Recently, there’s been a financial injection into the business and it’s been tidied up considerably. New surfacing in the car park, new garden furniture, redecoration within, new signs, a revamped menu, fresh flowers etc,. All good so far, and I’ve been keen to demonstrate my support. My expectations have been raised...

This evening I popped in on the way home from visiting my children. I got a beer and ordered something simple – a freshly made burger. There were perhaps a dozen people in, mostly just drinking, but it was still early. There were two bar staff, hardly under pressure at this point. My burger arrived promptly and I took a table near the bar which had been vacant since I arrived 15 minutes earlier.

The table had on it two half full ashtrays and a couple of empty glasses. The member of staff who brought my burger made no attempt to remove them. If it had been important to her, she’d had plenty of time before I sat down – the table as I say had not been used since before I arrived. I can only assume she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She asked if I wanted anything else. I requested mayo and/or ketchup. She said she’d bring both. When she returned she said they had no ketchup and placed a bowl of mayo on the table. She left again without removing the empty glasses or the used ashtrays. The mayo bowl had dry ketchup down the side and underneath it. The mayo was from yesterday – there was a dry lining of it around the inside rim of the bowl.

The landlord and his wife came in, presumably from his apartment above the pub. Shortly after that the financial investor entered too. Although they said hello, none of them appeared to notice the ashtrays or glasses. I moved one of the ashtrays on top of the other. This prompted a more experienced barman to come over and remove them and ask how the burger was. The burger was good, but that’s all I can say - the meal experience includes the quality of the food, the service, and the ambience to both relax and stimulate so that the event is an enjoyable as possible. Good food is great but it's not enough to keep customers returning.

As I went to pay my bill, I overheard the investor talking about his plans to help grow the business with more local advertising. I was tempted to say something, and indeed should have, but I didn’t say anything. I’ve expressed my views often before - as observation rather than complaint - but to no effect. This time I came home and began my blog. And I will vote with my wallet and my feet and go up the road to eat and drink instead.

I’m a great believer in supporting small local businesses, the retention of village life and all that goes with it. I am passionate about the return of real and local foods, quality of service and trading activities to rural areas, so this has been a tough decision. Fortunately there are three other pubs in the village and I know which one is now going to get my business.