People Notice!
Posted on Wed, Oct 14, 2009
Today, Nathalie Molina talks about customer loyalty and a great Caribbean restaurant!
Here's another "are you kidding me!?" story from the consumer trenches.
I had a little gathering in my home a couple Sundays ago, and hired my favorite local Caribbean restaurant to cater the event. To give you some background, this is a small, but well-trafficked restaurant in a busy main-street of what is currently a trendy, up and coming neighborhood. They've been written up in all the local papers and websites, and even host a regular musical event twice a month.
While I can barely fathom how, Theo (the charming and cheerful owner) always recognizes me and comes over to check in on the latest happenings in the neighborhood. He spends as much time with me and my group when the place is bursting at the seams as on a quiet evening on a slow night. So I wasn't surprised that Theo decided to deliver the catered food to my house himself. I was surprised however, when he noticed that I was running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, and promptly decided to take over manning the kitchen for me!
I was inordinately grateful just to have the owner of a popular local business deliver warm food! On time no less!
Instead Theo went to work putting together a gorgeous buffet spread that was presented so beautifully (with things he dug out from my cupboards that I didn't even remember I owned!) that I noticed my guests hesitated to eat it when the time came! He found some pans and warmed things that needed warming and even made sure that the various garnishes were presented just so.
Then when the first few guests started to trickle in, he snuck away and gave me a big hug on his way out the door!
Are you kidding me!?
Theo has owned multiple businesses and spent his early days learning customer service the Nordstrom way, so he knows customer service...but this time he really went off the deep end. Thankfully!
And the resulting goodness is hard to measure, but here is a quick run down of the things I saw come from this, (mainly for anyone who ever wonders if their good work ever goes unnoticed):
- The event was a book signing with Rosanne Olson, who apart from being well known in her own field (she was on the Today Show promoting her book last year), is very well connected locally and took Theo's business cards home with her that evening.
- Before Theo left I was able to introduce him to a number of other guests who all ended up gushing about his food and going home with his cards and plans to visit him soon.
- In chatting about his business while we prepared for the event, Theo told me about his plans to franchise, and I gave him a copy of my absolute favorite book on the subject, and offered to introduce him to a number of gurus in the field who I know will be great contacts for him.
- It's been two weeks and I still think of Theo daily (how many multi-million dollar marketing campaigns succeed at that?).
- I don't plan on catering with anyone else anytime in the near future (and I have about 5 large events I'm helping plan in the next couple months).
- I am extremely grateful for his help last month, and it's come up in MANY conversations (and I've given out at least 20 of his cards).
While it seemed like over the top customer service at the time, if you think about the results (customer loyalty, glowing references, word of mouth advertising...) and the fact that this all represented about an hour of Theo's time, it's really baffling why more of us aren't camping out in our customer's kitchens cooking them up something nice!