The power of contrast in just 24 hours
10 November 2004
Being a passionate disciple of customer service for the past 20 years, and having run 18 customer service seminars all over Southern Africa this year alone and delivered numerous talks on the subject, I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised that I look out for examples of the good and the bad. But when the great and the awful jump out and hit you in the face in the space of 24 hours, it really highlights for me how important it is to take the trouble to make sure that the outcome for your customers is a good one.
THE BAD. This past Sunday night I popped over to a popular pizzeria in the Morningside Shopping Centre (Gauteng) with the family for a quick bite before I got stuck into compiling the newsletter. Intelligent call, as everyone knows, pizzas take 10 minutes to make. Only trouble was, it didn't end up being very quick. After 10 minutes we move tables as the table next to us was smoking us out. We received our starter salad a few minutes later at our new table - at least our waitress knew where we were. So far so good. Our pizzas were taking quite a while, but we weren't too concerned initially, as the restaurant was busy. Little did we know we'd been forgotten. We watched the people at the table we had left being served, eat their meal and leave. An hour after receiving our salad we had not had another visit from our waitress. Several reminders later and another 25 minutes - the longest I've ever had to wait for pizzas, the food arrived. Unfortunately, the situation was further aggravated by a smart-alec manager being off-hand to my wife. The pepper grinder, which I had to fetch myself from another table, disintegrated as I tried to use it. Despite two good pizzas and the owner apologizing and offering us the meal on the house (which I refused) the damage was done. We paid our bill and left with full stomachs, but empty hearts.
THE GREAT. The next day, Monday 8 November, the Congruence team drove to Bass Lake Lodge, 20 minutes north of Pretoria for our bi-annual strat meeting. We were met by the boss, the functions coordinator and 2 waiters as we drove in. The tea, coffee and rusks on arrival were beautifully presented. How do you present rusks elegantly? Go there and find out. Our meeting room was quaint. At each break we were served by smiling faces, speciality teas were arranged on request, and the way everything was presented remained consistently good. At lunchtime, the dining room was decked with flowers, gentle music played in the background, the service was warm and caring. When we left, Geraldine the functions coordinator was there to wave us off and check that our experience had been acceptable. It was a lot better than acceptable, I can tell you! We left with a warm glow feeling that the service we had received was way,way beyond our expectations. (You can contact them at +27 (012) 7351650 or info@basslakelodge.co.za )
These events reinforced a few things for me this week:
- When you're treated really well, it highlights how bad "indifferent" really is.
- Friendly, willing faces sure beat the hell out of lame excuses.
- Being friendly and caring costs the same as being indifferent - absolutely nothing.
- Disappointed customers seldom return to be disappointed again, but like to warn others. Happy customers look for reasons to return and advertise for you - for free.
- Sometimes the advertising reaches a lot of people.
- It doesn't matter how long you've been in business, things change. Make sure that if it's your level of service, that the direction is right.
My experiences were solely as a result of one major difference. One owner made a conscious decision to provide excellent, memorable service to all hiscustomers, set his mind to the goal and accomplishes it daily.
The other owner, who tried to cover up "forgot" with "very busy" still needs to make that decision.
Paul du Toit
