Being Sincere Makes a Difference

We were on vacation for a few days, and staying in a hotel, we ended up eating out quite a bit. On average, we ate out 2x a day. one of the things that stood out to us was the difference in the waiters and waitresses we had. My husband and I ended up having a conversation about this, which started on the second night of our trip, and followed all the way through each meal we ate out.

We were out to dinner on Sunday night, and a waitress asked us if everything turned out all right. The problem is, she didn’t wait for our answer, she answered for us, then kept walking! “Is everything okay, good, okay”, and kept walking. We never had time to answer, or get that refill of our drink we were waiting for. Hmm, not very sincere when you don’t want to know the answer.

We had had a fabulous waiter the night before at another restaurant. The comparison was obvious, and so started our ongoing discussion at each meal.

One waitress at breakfast seemed like she had somewhere else she wanted to be, because aside from taking our order, we didn’t see her again. She didn’t even bring out our food….she did briefly appear at the end of our meal to give us our check, after somebody else cleared our table. No asking how the meal was, no asking anything, just drop the check and run…

On the other hand, we had a waitress that spoke VERY broken English for breakfast. She made an effort to make sure she wrote down exactly what we wanted, smiled, and checked back on us twice. She had trouble understanding the difference between tomato and potato, so I pointed to it on the menu. She smiled and thanked me for showing her. It was okay she didn’t have these things memorized, she was so pleasant, we were happy to go through our choices with her. We went back the next day and were pleased to have her for a waitress again.

One dinner the waiter started out strong, then I think got overwhelmed as more people came in. Hey, I’ve been there…I’ve put my time in bartending and being a waitress, so I understand that feeling. He still made the effort to swing by, even though we could tell he had become frazzled, and that mattered to us. He didn’t forget us, even though he was rushed.

The great waiter set the bar the first night, and the friendliness of the one waitress set the bar.

We actually had a waitress at lunch tell us we were the “quietest, easiest table” to take care of! I’m not kidding, but we get comments like this often. We’re friendly, kind, simple to please, and are happy to quietly talk amongst ourselves. Aren’t most other people? Keep my Diet Coke filled, and I’m happy.

Lastly, our final stop for dinner we had a great meal. The waiter simply did his job, and wasn’t a “presence”…you barely noticed he was there, the food came out hot, salads crisp, and he checked for refills. He was almost stealth…he didn’t take over the meal, just merely made sure you were enjoying it.

What can you learn from this? How sincere are you or your employees when dealing with your customers?