A State of Mind

When was the last time you visited a video arcade? If that question reminds you of a time when Pac-Man (or worse yet, Pong) was still considered state of the art, you really need to find the nearest the Dave and Buster’s and go spend some time hanging out there.

For those who are not familiar with the chain, Dave and Buster’s is essentially a video arcade for grown-ups, including a bar, a selection of pool and billiard tables, many large television screens with a wide variety of sports programming, and a medium-price casual dining restaurant. We happened to eat there – and take in a few video games – over the past weekend, and it struck me as an interesting variation on the more common medium-price restaurant chains. Or, if you prefer, as an interesting variation on video arcades and bars. While we were there, however, we were also treated to an excellent demonstration of what good customer service really is.

First off, the concierge on duty was able to help me with a replacement for my Dave and Buster’s Gold Card. I should explain that all of the video games, skeeball machines, and other electronic entertainment systems at Dave and Buster’s operate on reloadable smart cards, which keep track of both how many credits you have left, and how many prize coupons you have won (if you play those sorts of games). Unfortunately, my card had been stolen along with my wallet a few months before, but I still had my card number, and that plus my photo ID was enough for the friendly concierge staff to find my account in their database and issue me a new card and card number. They even refused to charge me the usual $2 for a replacement card when they learned that mine had been stolen.

Then there was our waiter. The dining room at Dave and Buster’s is nothing fancy; the food is a fair match in both price and quantity for a Chili’s or a TGI Friday’s, and perhaps slightly better in quality (it’s a judgment call). But unlike most of the underpaid zombies you find at the competitors’ locations, Chris, our waiter, was a real pro. He made sure that our table got everything we needed, make sure that the other waiters who took over for him when he went on break got everything right, and managed to make it look as though we were his only customers, despite the fact that we could see him taking care of a party of 12 and a party of 20 on the other side of the aisle from where we were sitting. Balancing four tables – or even six – is one thing; balancing the equivalent of ten quite another. And he did it without looking harassed, hurried, or even particularly overworked; in fact, he made it look easy.

The fact is, I’ve seen waiters with a third of the load Chris was balancing, or concierge staff who don’t have dozens of drunken sports fans and hundreds of screaming children running around them, for that matter, who did not perform nearly as well as the folks at Dave and Buster’s did last week. In fact, not only have I paid more for a much less pleasant dining experience, I did so the very next day – and I’ll tell you more about that in my next post. But for now, let me repeat something I was told many years ago, during my first high-traffic customer service job, which is even more true today: Customer Service is a state of mind…