As an 18-year-old waitress in a small local caf in Victoria, I made $5 an hour.
My wages went straight into the bank to pay for university tuition while my tips went into a glass peanut butter jar. Tips were my fun money and they were much more important to me than the boring tuition funds in the bank. Making sure that my customers were happy was important to me because, at the end of the night, my tip total was a direct reflection of the level of my customers satisfaction.
Its strange but I dont remember receiving any specific customer service training from the restaurant manager. Im not too sure where I generated my concept of what good customer service was. At that point in my life, I still ate out with my parents who were around to negotiate with serving staff on my behalf.
So it is no surprise that, looking back now, I wish Id interacted differently when serving customers. Particularly during times of conflict or stress, I didnt possess the necessary skills or experience to accurately identify what the customer needed from me.
I clearly remember feeling devastated when customers found a hair in their hamburger or returned undercooked food to me. I wish, in those trying moments, when I faced the real possibility of receiving no tips at all, that I wasnt so quick to place blame on others in order to save myself.
Blame has no place in business. Customers with complaints want recognition followed by solutions but blame satisfies neither of these things. Unfortunately, my typical reaction to a customers complaint was, Oh, Im really sorry about that. It must be the new cook that we have in the kitchen or the staff shortage or the new owners or the dishwasher that needs servicing or the new kitchen fans that cool the food or the...and so on and so on.
I always went to the blame game first and then stumbled upon some half-hearted solution.
But in reality, when a problem arises, the customer doesnt care about identifying the cause of the problem. The customer wants a solution. Employees need to realize that while the situation may not be their fault, it is their problem. The more quickly they can view the situation as an opportunity to create trust by honouring the customers time, money, and feelings, the better their chances are of saving the relationship. Wasting time on blame and explanations just delays the customer from getting back to their original purpose of being in your business to start with.
The problem with blame is that, to the customer, it sounds like you are saying, Yes, youre right, our team/business sucks.
The negativity of the specific situation then taints the entire business with broad black strokes. It implies that there are systemic reasons why this unfortunate situation happened.
Instead, train employees to leave blame behind and go straight to an apology followed by a solution. If a solution is not readily identifiable, it may be good to ask the customer if they have a solution in mind. If they do, make sure that the actual solution exceeds the customers expectations.
Until next week, stay in the black and keep coming back.
