There's a restaurant I go to often that I've deemed is my place of choice. It's called Pier 57, and it's just about 5 minutes from my house. I do have other restaurants that I enjoy a lot, but this is pretty much my lunch restaurant.

They have a lot of people working there as waitstaff. I find that interesting because most restaurants I go to have only a few people, and you get used to seeing those same people over and over. In this case I've had to try to remember the names of at least 13 people to date, and I'm failing miserably at it, as I know without having to think about it the names of half of them. But I keep trying.

Those folks that have seen me more than a couple of times already know what I want when I get there. I won't be sitting a minute before they've brought me what they know I'm going to order to drink, and the way I like it. They also know what I'm going to order for lunch; okay, I almost always order the exact same thing so that's easy. I get my meal fairly quickly, and the check on me often.

This isn't the only restaurant where I have similar experiences though. I must go to enough places often enough so that they start memorizing what I like. However, I've noticed that even restaurants that I don't go to all that often are pretty good at customer service. Sure, every once in awhile you get one that's not doing things all that well, but it's a rare occurrence for me.

Have you ever wondered what it is about restaurants that seem to drive great customer service? I have, and here are 4 things I tend to believe.

1. There definitely is a relationship between how they treat us and how much we'll tip. Since waitstaff gets paid less per hour than anyone else in this country, they know that they can make more money by being overly nice than by being snippy. I'm one of those people that tends to tip really well because of it.

2. When most of us go out to eat we're looking to have a good time. Because we're not tense we don't shift bad vibrations onto the people who will be bringing us our food for the evening. Most people are perceptive enough to know when someone's ready to have a good time or isn't mentally feeling all that well and they can tend to take on someone else's emotions.

3. They understand that how they treat us reflects on the employer, their continued employment and whether customers come back or not. I've known people who will go back to a restaurant where the food wasn't great because they were treated well. I'm not one of those people, but I am the type that will forgive a bad night by the people cooking my food because the people out on the floor have been gracious.

4. They're allowed to make decisions for the customer's benefit. If we don't like something they can take it back and remove it from the bill, or bring us something we might not have asked for as compensation for our troubles. Sure, it might take money away from the restaurant at the moment, but it will pay great dividends later on.

How many of these principles can be transferred to other businesses to help with their client relations? I tend to believe all of them can, and any company that cares enough about their business to educate their employees on principles like these will show positive results in more ways than they can imagine. Are you taking the opportunity to help your employees become better at customer service processes?
 

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