High Road Diplomacy and Customer Service

My husband and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate our twenty-fifth Valentines Day together.  I recommended a restaurant that he had never been to.  He called to make a reservation and was advised that they don’t accept reservations and yes, they expected to be very busy.  For that reason we decided to go a bit earlier than we normally would.

When we arrived the gal at the door smiled up at us and said, “How many?” 

“Two, please.”

“Do you have a reservation?” she asked.

“No, we were told that you don’t accept reservations.”

“Well, I don’t know who would have told you that.  We’ll do our best to squeeze you in, it will probably be about 55 minutes,” she said as she handed me a pager.

55 minutes seemed reasonable on the Saturday before Valentines Day, so we sat down to “people-watch” and bide our time. About thirty minutes into our vigil, a trio of women sat down beside us and continued a heated discussion they were having about the projected wait time.  They had apparently arrived a half an hour before we had and their wait time kept growing each time they checked with the desk.  Hmmm, this didn’t bode well for our seating.  Shortly there after, one of the three had some extremely testy words with the manager and they were seated fairly quickly.

An hour and 15 minutes into our adventure, Ron got up to check with the desk.  She advised him that it would be another 15 to 20 minutes, but we were welcome to sit in the bar if we could find a seat there.  20 more minutes passed and I approached the desk to check one more time.

“Can you give me a realistic estimate of when a table will be available for Lauren-party-of-two?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be much longer,” she smiled, “about another 15 – 20 minutes.”

It might have been the grimace on my face… I’m not sure… but the manager stepped in at that point.  “Hi, my name is Steve.  I’m the General Manager.  How can I help?”  I shared our dilemma with him.  “Ah, the challenge is fitting the walk-ins in with the reservations.  We guarantee seating within 10 minutes of a reservation time.”

“Here is my concern,” I said.  “When we called to make a reservation we were advised that you did not take reservations.  I have also heard several people discussing calling ahead to get their name on the list.  This possibility was not offered to us either when we called.”

“I am so sorry for this inconvenience,” he said.  “I can see why you might be frustrated.  Let me clarify our policies for you.  We do indeed accept reservations, and we normally accept same day reservations.  Today we had to cut off the reservations because there were so many.  I am sure that is what she meant when she said that we don’t take reservations.  We also do recommend calling ahead to get your name on our waiting list.”

“Ah,” I replied. “I believe there was just a fundamental break-down in communication.  Had it been explained to us in that manner when we called, we would have understood – and we probably would have made a different choice, at least for this very busy evening.”  Then I added, “I have eaten here for lunch several times and enjoyed it greatly.  That is why I recommended it to my husband who has never been here.”

Steve nodded, “I understand.”  He walked over to introduce himself to my husband and said, “Let me see what I can do to get you a table.”  We were seated within 2 minutes.  We had a wonderful dinner and Steve arranged for complimentary dessert.

I believe the whole encounter is an excellent lesson in High Road diplomacy and customer service.  My husband truly hates being a “squeaky wheel,” such as the grousing trio that had been sitting next to us – although it did get them a table immediately.  I chose a High Road solution and explained the reason for our concern and confusion.  I followed that with a “what’s in it for Steve” moment when I explained that I had recommended the restaurant to my husband.  The unspoken message was simply, “Is this the first impression you want him to have?”  I find High Road strategies to always be most effective.  (I would bet that the grumpy trio did not get a free dessert out of it.)  Furthermore, Steve’s customer service at that point was impeccable.  He saw a problem brewing and tackled it immediately.  He made us feel valued and respected, fixed the problem and then went the extra mile to leave a positive impression.  That is a model for exceptional, High Road customer service.

So here is a High Road shout-out to Steve Kyriazis and the Elephant Bar Restaurant in Overland Park, KS.  The food is excellent.  When you decide to go on a busy night... make sure you have reservations!