Restaurant Customer Service

When they go the Extra Mile with Restaurant Customer Service

So there you are in an airport in the middle of who-knows-where, flying home to your sweetie to a wonderful round of anniversary celebrations that includes attendance at two of the nicest restaurants you've never been to. You've made reservations in your name and you're looking forward to the special treat. As you're waiting for your flight, you just quickly put out a tweet about how terrible airport sandwiches can be when you're dreaming about the best French restaurant experience in the world shortly to follow. So the next day, you show up with your lady at the said restaurant and the whole buildup seems wonderful. The place is set out perfectly and the appetizers are divine. Before your main course arrives though, the waiter brings a set of beautifully-made miniature sandwiches that you never asked for. Grinning broadly, he says he hopes that these are better than your experience at the airport restaurant. You like going where everyone knows you and you love attentive restaurant customer service. But you're flabbergasted - how did they even know that you had a bad experience with sandwiches at an airport far away?

And then you remember that you tweeted it. The restaurant has your name for the reservation; at fancy restaurants all over the world today, they routinely look up the names of the people who have reservations with them and they look the Internet up for any mentions of their restaurant. If you tweet about anything, your name will show up in their search. It can be an amazing feeling knowing how today's technology is working for you behind your back - in new ways you never imagined. These days, in an attempt to raise the bar with restaurant customer service, and perhaps in an attempt to win some extra points that could lead to bigger tips, restaurants do tend to do this.

But it depends on the kind of customer they are dealing with. A young patron at a restaurant is likely to be cool with how people can look him up and know everything he's done. Older patrons are likely to find it unamusing. In such a case, restaurants use Google just to be able to find a picture of the person they have a reservation for. This way, the maître d', when he sees the person walking in the door, right away knows who it is and can greet them by name. It's just the next step forward in gracious restaurant customer service. People might find it unsettling sometimes to know that a restaurant has been Googling them to know exactly what they like to eat. But they don't mind it if all they ever know is that the person at the reservations desk greets them by name the moment they see their face. They are just duly impressed.

Guests shouldn't mind this too much (if they do so at all). But there is another reason restaurants have to do this kind of thing. They want to be able to spot influential chefs and critics when they come to their restaurant. Restaurants across the country actually have a common database pool called OpenTable where they share all their information so that they can give it one another a heads up.