Page 152 - The Apple Experience

the employee” response. He then asked if he could talk to us

again after our meal and offered to buy our desserts.
He spent twenty minutes talking to us, gathering our

opinion on a number of topics related to his restaurant and our

overall observations and experience. This was a great way to
handle such a simple service failure, well beyond what we

expected. We were happy after the free appetizer and even more
so after the free desserts and the personal attention from the

owner.
But the purpose of this tale is what happened next—the

owner picked up the tab for our entire meal, asking only that we

tip the waitperson on the total bill. This was a fantastic response
for having us wait a bit longer than we should have for a table

and a great example of dealing with a customer service failure.
Then he totally blew us away … he handed us a card and offered

to buy us another complete meal, an appetizer, two entrées, two
drinks, and two desserts, if we would come back two weeks from

that night, give them another try, and give our comments to the
duty manager that evening.
1

Vanessa usually paraphrases stories she mentions in her articles, but she

couldn’t trim this one, nor could I. This Outback owner could start a
customer service training school for restaurant managers and waitstaff! Now I

challenge all customer service professionals to stay off the defense for a

change and go to this measure every time a customer is unhappy. If you do,

you are sure to reset your customers’ clocks, strengthen their perceptions of

your brand, and keep them for life.

If your staff is not greeting customers and resetting internal clocks, then

shut this book now and schedule a training session to coach your team right
away on this very important skill. Go ahead. I can wait. Nothing else in the

book will matter if your staff doesn’t understand or cannot execute the steps