Great Saves - The Value of Empowering Your Employees

Your servers are in the best position to save the day when it comes to preventing or smoothing over a customer problem. Make sure they know how to best address the unexpected mishaps and unusual requests that regularly happen at every restaurant.

Several years ago, I had an experience in a restaurant I'll never forget. I was having lunch with a friend in a small, stylish restaurant. As my friend was about to take the first bite of her sandwich, with the sandwich a few inches from her mouth, she lifted the top piece of bread to look at the filling and saw more than chicken salad. Perched on the lettuce, squiggling at her, was a worm.

As she turned green, I signaled the nearest server who told us we weren't his table. We both stared at the sandwich. When our server came to the table, he chuckled. He asked if she wanted a new sandwich. I firmly told him to remove the plate from the table.

A few minutes later, we found out where he received his training. We asked to see the manager, who told us how we should be "reassured" by the worm because the menu boasts that the restaurant only serves "organic" produce -- and that worm was living proof the lettuce is organic! Please pass the pesticide.

Contrast that experience with one I had a few weeks ago. I was in a casual, neighborhood restaurant about to enjoy my dinner. When I peeled back the aluminum foil of the baked potato and sliced it open, I saw that a good one-third of the potato was grayish-black with rot. My server happened to be walking by, and I hadn't even completed a sentence when I saw his eyes focus on the offending potato. He whisked my plate away.

My suggestion is that there is no way to resolve a complaint other than in favor of the guest. When the customer wins, you win, too. -- Bill Marvin, The Restaurant Doctor

He quickly returned to apologize. He said, "I'm sorry you had to see that," which struck me as more substantive than a rote apology. When he returned the plate to me, it held my original dinner along with the biggest baked potato I've ever seen in my life -- already cut open and plumped -- all on a fresh plate. As I was leaving, I received another apology. What more could the server have done? Nothing. As far as I was concerned, my situation was handled well, and I'll continue to be a customer. Credit this server with one "great save."

Handling customer complaints and concerns about food seems like common sense, but it's not always. You'd think that a server would know that the first thing to do with a customer with a live creature in her sandwich is to remove the plate. That's the rule in most restaurants. Out of sight doesn't mean out of mind, but it goes a long way to calm the customer down.

And when it comes to creating and maintaining happy customers, servers are the ones to do it. It's a restaurant manager's cliché to say, "Servers are the frontline," but that is true. No matter what goes wrong during a guest's experience, it's clear the server is in the right place at the right time to save the day by making a bad situation better.