A Short Example

Here’s a short example of the difference I was going on about – between taking care of your customers, and not. Last week I had two different dining out experiences that I think demonstrate the extreme ends of the spectrum.

One night on the way home from work, my wife and I decided to stop for dinner at a local Islands restaurant location. This particular restaurant is located on a busy street in Los Angeles where there is no parking on the street during rush hour (e.g. 4 pm to 7 pm every day) because the parking lane is used as an extra traffic lane. The restaurant has a valet parking service available during the evening, because the surrounding streets are permit parking only and there is no public lot nearby. On the night in question, however, we arrived shortly after 5:00 pm and discovered that the valet service did not start until 6:00 pm. In other words, between the hours of 4 and 6 every day, if you want to have dinner at this Islands, you’d better be walking…

This would be a bit less preposterous if the restaurant’s “Happy Hour” wasn’t also from 4 to 7 pm every day. However…

A few days later, we decided to get take-out from a Daily Grill restaurant not that far away from the Islands referenced above. Pulling up to the curb in front of the restaurant, I was not surprised to see a loading zone; a lot of restaurants have one in front for people dropping off dinner companions. What was unusual about this one was the large sign with the Daily Grill logo and telephone number, which indicated that if you were picking up a take-out order you could just call the number indicated, and they would bring your order out to you at curbside.

All right; so this isn’t really a fair comparison. Daily Grill is considerably upscale compared to Islands, and the placement of the loading zone is up to the city; the restaurant is just taking advantage of it. What I want to call your attention to is the difference in attitude; between calling one business and being told “That’s when our valet comes on duty; there’s nothing we can do about it,” and being told “Sure, we’ll bring your order out to the curb; no problem.” There’s a reason Daily Grill can charge more than twice as much for a meal, and not all of it is food quality…

Taking care of your customers isn’t just a state of mind – but that is where it starts.