This Is What Good Customer Service Looks Like

business, family, lessons learned 1 Minute

I’m sure most of it was Restaurant Server 101 sort of stuff:

  • greeting us with a smile
  • confirming our order before she left the table
  • returning promptly with our drinks
  • cleaning the table when a very small part of one of the drinks spilled over the top
  • quickly finding us a table inside to move to when it started to rain outside
  • checking in to let us know our food would be served soon
  • bringing us water without asking
  • asking us right after our food had been delivered if everything was correct
  • coming back shortly afterward to ask how everything was
  • asking one last time if there was anything else we needed, and then returning promptly with the check (this last one is one that really bugs me)
  • laughing, well, at least smiling, at one of my stupid jokes

If you look at the list, there is nothing out of the ordinary about it.

But when someone pulls it all together, which in my experience is a rare event, it makes for a pleasant and memorable experience.

So hopefully, both our word of thanks and our tip, were enough to show our gratitude for a job well done.

*image from Glassdoor.com

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

Published

74 thoughts on “This Is What Good Customer Service Looks Like”

  2. Yeah, why couldn’t they forget the check? LOL! Wonderful that you had great service and I am sure that if she wasn’t laughing out loud at your jokes, that on the inside she was laughing at you….I mean at your jokes. 😂

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  3. I had just the opposite experience recently. I placed a takeout order at a restaurant that will remain anonymous (the initials are Cracker Barrel). 😄 The manager wound up giving me two free meals but I’d much prefer decent service.

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  4. It’s a fine line between being attentive and annoying. However, I’d much rather have them offer too much service than too little. I believe in giving substantial tips when they’re efficient, communicative, and friendly,

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  8. Awesome!!
    You wouldn’t believe the hissy fits when, due to ongoing drought, restaurants were not allowed to serve water unless a customer asked for it!! You’d think it was replaced with a mandatory punch in the face!
    I can’t imagine how much water was saved by that simple change… plus no glasses needing to be washed, and freeing up a few seconds of server time, and selling people more expensive drinks! Multi-level win!!

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  10. Hehe, laughing at my joke would definitely earn extra points lol… One of my pet peeves is when a restaurant doesn’t allow their wait staff to write down customer orders. I assume it’s the restaurant bc all of the servers don’t carry pen and paper bc my order is always wrong or missing something.. 🤔🤔

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  11. jim, you are so right and thank you for this! as a woman who worked her way through school as a waitress, bartender, caterer, and cocktail waitress, you are the perfect customer – jim jokes and all

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  12. I have never understood where they make you wait for ever for the check. Table space in a restaurant is premium real estate. The sooner they can get you fed and away from that table, the sooner they can park more customers there. Oh well, I am not in the restaurant biz so i guess I don’t get it.

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  17. Great list. I could make one of those for health care people to follow, too. Different offices give off such different vibes and some don’t think that customer service is even part of their job. 🙂

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      1. I’ve been to both. Hospitals, too, especially during COVID, it’s probably hard to take time to be kind, cheerful and friendly. Then poof, you’re in the habit. 🙂 Besides, if you wear a mask, who needs to smile, right?

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      7. Eventually. And kids need guidance in knowing when eventually is.

        My step son came home from an interview when, at age 25 he had moved in with my new husband and me. He wasn’t working or going to school and informed me that he didn’t need a job “like that.” I lost my cool and told him that he was an old man who needed to go to work and live on his own. His “Dad said I could live here while I finished school” argument didn’t work with step-mom.

        He moved out, went to work and back to school, became a teacher, then moved on from that. Baby steps to success. Now, 26 years later, I have a son to be proud of – and so does his dad. 🙂

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  19. Not all restaurants follow the basic courtesy. I have had bad experiences in quite a number of cases. I have seen waiters whi are frowning all the time, mostly will wait for your the customers to ask to clean up after something has spilled over. Impolite ones wont even ask you for a feedback and whether everything was fine. However some restaurants have real polite staffs, who add to the experience of a nice ambience and food.

    #MyWordsKraft

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