Yesterday I took my mother and grandmother to the Cheesecake Factory in the Rochester area because it's become my mother's favorite restaurant. It became my mother's favorite restaurant once I introduced it to her back in March, so I knew she's enjoy herself.

My initial thought was that I was beating the crowd in taking them the day before Mother's Day. However, not only was I incorrect on that one, but it turned out that two of the local colleges were graduating students this weekend, and that meant there were more people than normal waiting to get in.

Even though it looked like it was going to take us forever to get a seat, it's a large restaurant, and we only waited 20 minutes. We were escorted to our seat, and in less than 5 minutes we had our drinks and they were ready to take our order. With all the commotion and the potential for stress, the people who waited on us were calm, cool, and collected. The restaurant obviously knew the day was going to have a heavier number of visitors than normal, and they planned well for it. The food came timely and just right, and the waitress made sure she checked in on us often and kept our drink glasses filled.

This is customer service done correctly. They knew what people expected of them, even under duress, and they delivered. Most businesses aren't under this kind of stress, yet their businesses encounter customer service failures on a daily basis. Seems we all could learn a few lessons from restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory; I know I'm going to be a repeat visitor as often as I can be, since I live out of town.