My wife and I recently observed our anniversary with dinner in a very expensive restaurant. It's one of the places that makes everyone's list of "the best," and we have had perfect experiences on several previous visits, so it was a bit surprising to us that this time, a couple of things just weren't right. The food itself was excellent as always, and our server did a great job (although he could work a bit on his English). But we felt, for the first time, that the restaurant treated us as if we were the enemy.
First, arriving with a reservation, on a slow night (a Monday when only a half-dozen tables were occupied), we were shown to the worst table in the house (worst, that is, unless you value having a great view of the restroom doors, the hustle-bustle of waiters racing by you to the kitchen, and an excellent perch for overhearing the cacophony from the bar).
Now, this is a game that a lot of restaurants, from hoity-toity to the nitty-gritty, play, and I've always considered it a little insulting to the patron...why not show the customer to the best spot available (as most places in Europe, and even European restaurateurs here in the U.S. would do)? But really, on a night when they were about 80% empty? Give me a break! Still, the rules of the game dictate that they affront you in this way, on the off chance that you'll accept a table nobody else will, and then you have to ask for something different. We did so, and eventually were seated at another table.
We selected and ordered a wine. I commented to my wife when I ordered that they'd probably be out of it, since it was among the more moderately priced on the list -- and sure enough, within seconds, almost, the waiter was back: "Sorry, we're out of that one." Right behind him came the wine steward, with a whole mouthful of suggestions for substitutes, each of them, curiously, about double the price of the one we ordered. That's called the sommelier game, and it's pretty common too, but again, it's a bit like thumbing your nose at the customer. We eventually picked a fine wine in our price bracket, not his.
Neither of these things was a catastrophe; we enjoyed our evening despite them, and I'm pleased to say, the restaurant has responded with concern to my complaint. We had not experienced such minor but still surprising glitches at this restaurant before, but we are familiar with them from many other places. Maybe it was this change that jarred me into the realization that some restaurants are customer-friendly, but others seem to deal with their patrons in a way that's best described as adversarial. You, the diner, are the mark, to be bamboozled into an undesirable seat, to be pushed into buying a more expensive wine, or to be steered toward the most expensive dishes among the specials. This is not what I expect from a top-of-the-line restaurant; I'll stay away, and I expect others will too.
Happily for us, the restaurant in question responded with concern to the complaint I sent them, so I'm prepared to assume this was just one of those bad days. But the incident got me to thinking about customer relations more generally. It's not uncommon for businesses to fall into the habit of treating their customers as adversaries; customer dissatisfaction is almost always the result. Do they think we don't notice?
One good example is the cable/internet/phone company (and it doesn't seem to matter much which one); can anyone tell me they have one that doesn't treat them like an enemy? With ours, we get a contract with lots of fine print; a myriad of pricing schemes that are confusing, if not impossible, to distinguish; contract "renewal" offers over the phone that are different if we go to their store; fees and extra services tacked on unless we're very, very careful; a tech service system, if something goes wrong, that's almost impossible to thread your way through; and customer service representatives who will fight you over changes you try to make -- and then after that long battle, just not make the changes you requested, so you have to start over again.
I'm sure we all have our favorite examples of a service business that seems to believe its best bet for success is to treat the customer like a commodity. The practice seems counterintuitive to me.
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