Customer service lessons from Peter the Chef

There are 83,249 titles about customer service on Amazon.com. It’s been analyzed, systemized, amplified and quantified.

But at its core, great customer service is pretty simple.

Case in point, Peter the Chef.

Peter’s the head chef at a boutique hotel on the Left Coast. He has the pragmatic, easygoing style of a native Philadelphian.

A bunch of us hung out at his place of employ a few days ago, getting ready for a big meeting; brainstorming, fretting, rehearsing.

Through it all, Peter was omnipresent, but never hovered. He’s a keen observer and great listener, tuning in naturally to conversations around him. While we expected him to (hopefully) prepare sumptuous meals, we didn’t expect him to:

• Visit us after the food was served to describe what he had created with genuine pride (in his low-key style)
•  Improvise with a white tablecloth on a wall so we’d have a “screen” to rehearse our PowerPoint after the meal
• Help us get a vehicle big enough to seat nine for the big meeting
• Maneuver to get us a projector and real screen
• Give us four waves of complimentary hors d’ouevres the next day when we got back, again with personal descriptions

We never asked Peter to do any of these things, he just made it happen. That’s the essence of great customer service, isn’t it? Being consistently surprised. And delighted by the unexpected.

Some might say, “Why’s a head chef worrying about stuff like that? That’s not his job. You wouldn’t see that at a five star hotel!” Well, that’s exactly my point. I’ve stayed in many Four Seasons and Ritz Carltons and can’t remember when I was unexpectedly delighted.

Peter the Chef cared about making us happy. He cared about the experience we had. He wanted us to come back again.

Thanks to great customer service, we will.