Sorry, She's New...
I was at a dinner for
two people’s joint birthday celebration recently. We had a private room in a restaurant known
for its food and service. This time,
however, things didn’t go as well as they should have. The food was excellent, but the young lady
serving our party didn’t take down the complete order (omitting at least one
dish) and the service was extremely slow.
When we finally commented, we were told “Sorry, she’s new.”, as if that
excused the generally disappointing service.
The restaurant made a simple error of judgement in
allocating a new member of the service staff to serve a large party of people
in a private room where she couldn’t be properly supervised. This was a special occasion as well, so the
“birthday girls” in the party must have felt let-down, although they didn't
show it.
We could also have helped by asking for our order to be
repeated (we didn't), so the evening ended up with the restaurant “captain:
serving our party and embarrassment all round.
It was unfair both to our party and to the young lady
serving us – she simply didn't have the experience or training to handle such a
large group.
It made me wonder how often we may all be guilty of the same
thing. Do we delegate tasks to team
members who aren't fully trained for them (except, perhaps, when we want to
“stretch” them)? Do we fail to make sure
that we keep an eye on them and are there to support them when they run into
difficulty?
We can be so busy just “keeping things going” that we forget
that others may not have our knowledge, skill or understanding of the
situation. What may seem “easy” to us
may seem daunting to a new team member until they’ve had time to settle in and
understand how things work.
Different people learn at different speeds and in different
ways. We need to remember that. Hopefully, the restaurant will remember not
to “throw someone in at the deep end” next time…
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 08:17
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