Is the service industry in your blood?

A few snippets of information added to some observations over the past few days have given me more food for thought about service.

Firstly, when I went to Habitat to look at (for that read 'dream about'!!) the red accoutrements for my kitchen last weekend, I was served there by Martin. He was a real breath of fresh air. He is a diamond from the customer service perspective. I had to apply myself later to think through exactly what it was that marked HIS particular brand of service as being so outstanding. It wasn't that he smiled more, or did any more than any of the other staff there, or anyone else I generally have dealings with in shops.

My second series of thoughts along those lines came from watching one of the Guilford Young College (GYC) students making me a Chai Latte there yesterday. He just did what he needed to do to achieve his ultimate goal.

The third thing also along those lines was a conversation I had yesterday afternoon with Nat from Monty's, who amongst other things, explained that she had previously been a flight attendant. We also started a discussion along the lines of "How hard is it to provide great customer service?" - and you can imagine how that might have gone!

Finally, speaking to a friend last night on the phone, he described a conversation he and his lunch companion yesterday had about my ongoing blog dialogue about the blend of great food as well as great service, as a package, equating to the ultimate package in dining-out perfection for me in the restaurant stakes.

So - all the above separate items have had me thinking about exactly what and how great service impacts, and whether or not you actually CAN train someone in that.

Martin at Habitat was an older guy. He exuded confidence, professional knowledge, courtesy, interest and a total lack of bullshit. He was genuine.

Waldo, the student at GYC, also performed the actions of the Chai Latte prep, but in such a proud, professional, enthusiastic and efficient way, explaining exactly what he was doing and why as he progressed through the motions. That guy will go far in the world, hopefully in hospitality. He has that buzz of passion about him.

Nat's revealing of her past life as a flight attendant explained a lot to me about her natural and caring customer service attitude. She is a shining beacon in the customer service landscape.

The conversation between my friends at lunch yesterday took the form of opposing views on my opinion of the package of great food as well as great service combining to make the superb dining out experience, and the other view that it doesn't matter about the service - if the food is fabulous, then nothing else matters.

My opinion is that it is the inner motivation of the customer service practitioner that comes across. You just can't force that stuff. You can go through the motions, but your true feelings will come across however hard you try to train yourself in, or out, of it.