It’s Your Service – Own It!

by Great Ideas

By Mark Dudley

This Valentine’s Day was supposed to be the best ever. In the past, I was one of the guys who didn’t really try to over hype the holiday. I would throw out lines like “I love my wife 365 days a year, I’m not going to love her more on one day.” Yea, I was one of those guys. So this year, I thought about it and planned ahead. Instead of one day of gifts, I decided that my wife would get something special each day of Valentine’s week. Whether it was flowers, a note, or just a small gift, every day was covered. The plan was going well until Thursday (the most important day!)

I made dinner reservations at Morton’s in Charlotte. I’ve heard great things about them so it appeared to be a good idea. My wife and I were seated at 9:15 and all seemed to be well. To make a long story short, it was 11:20 when our food finally made it to our table. A big crowd, slow kitchen and a lost ticket all factored into our dinner taking 2 hours to make it to the table. Needless to say we weren’t happy. And it wasn’t just us, everyone around us was waiting. It seemed the whole restaurant was waiting.

Morton’s, on the biggest date night of the year, laid an egg! Our waitress was inattentive, she was obviously just as uncomfortable about the wait as we were, but she didn’t give us updates, or check in on us very much. The one saving grace for Morton’s was the manager. He owned it. He and his assistant separately apologized for the wait, took care of our dinner, and took full responsibility for our bad experience. He didn’t blame it on the waitress, he didn’t blame it on the kitchen, and he didn’t blame it on how busy they were.  Not only did they comp our meal, but also it seemed like they comp’d about 20 or so couples in the restaurant. Morton’s took a huge hit in Charlotte last night, but they did the right thing! They owned up to their bad service for the night, and tried to make it right.

– See more at: http://yourmarketingco.com/midweek-thoughts-from-mark-its-your-service-own-it/#sthash.qw58CEBk.dpuf

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