Page 133 - The New Gold Standard

It’s a Matter of Trust
my table and asked for grape jelly. Unfortunately, we had only
strawberry and raspberry. I let her know the options that were
available, and told her I would do everything in my power to get
her the grape jelly she desired. I then went back to my team and
let them know I needed to go to the nearby store to purchase
grape jelly, and they gladly provided me coverage and support.
You should have seen the lady’s face when I returned with the
jelly. She asked where I got it, and I answered her. In that mo-
ment, the lady knew that I viewed her as important to me and
that she was not being treated as if her needs and wants did not
matter. She did not have to sacrifice her needs based on the jelly
we had on hand.
“I know it’s a little thing but it always seems to be the little
things that build lifetime relationships with guests. For me it is
great that my company not only trusts me to leave the building
during work but goes out of its way to encourage me to do so.
In essence, it is the most important part of my job.”
On a somewhat larger scale, Daniel Mangione, then a pastry
sous chef at The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, exercised his empower-
ment for a person who wasn’t even a hotel guest. “I received a
phone call from a lady in our community who wanted a recom-
mendation for a local bakery that would create a birthday cake
for her daughter. At first I wasn’t sure why she had called Ritz-
Carlton, but as we started talking, I found out her daughter was
turning eight years old and was allergic to soy products. The
woman told me that she wanted to find someone who could bake
a cake without using soy, but most bakeries did not want to re-
search the ingredients. So she was asking for a referral.
“I told her, ‘Ma’am, I am more than happy to create a birth-
day cake without using soy products.’ She came in the next day.
I sat down with her, and we shared a cup of coffee. We reviewed
the ingredients of the cake I was going to make for her daugh-
ter. Working within the restrictions, I made the cake, decorated
it, wrote ‘Happy Birthday, Janie’ and put a candle in it. The
mother came and picked it up.”

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