Customer Service and Right Fit Talent
Every job requires a special blend of skills and talents if the job is to be done masterfully. At the Starbucks near my home, one of the “baristas” epitomizes the concept of right fit talent. While all of the baristas do a fine job, James stands out through his uncanny knowledge of customer names and their favorite beverages.
While Starbucks emphasizes this in their training, James takes it way beyond what can be trained. He prepares beverages for customers even before they walk in the door, having seen them walking in from the parking lot. He knows the names of customers’ family members and keeps up a running banter even when it’s busy, including just about everyone in the discussion. Talk about right fit talent.
There are bad, average, and outstanding coffee shop employees, engineers, dentists, accountants, custodians, and presidents. The outstanding ones not only possess the necessary skills for their jobs, they appear to be born for their roles. Excellence seems to come naturally to these individuals, and everyone around them can see that someone special is at work. The trick is to discover the qualities of these special performers and find other people just like them. Unfortunately, these special qualities are different for every job and for every company’s culture, so you can’t simply develop a single set of job criteria and apply those criteria to any position. Through observation and analysis, however, you can discover the unique talents possessed by outstanding performers in a particular role. It’s certainly worth the effort.
Names and personalized service go a long long way….
My husband I and were in Vegas several years ago and found a nice QUIET place at the Paris, where you could have a conversation, sip a glass of wine or have a cup of coffee and NOT be inundated by the mad ding-ding-ding of the slots. We settled into 2 high back leather library chairs and our waitress, RoseAlba arrived. She took our orders, and said she would return with a sampling of sandwiches from the carving station – then hesitated, apologized to my husband and said, “I am sorry, you ordered coffee – I can’t bring you sandwiches.” – hubby said, “I don’t drink.” She nodded, walked away- returning shortly with my glass of wine and hubby’s coffee. Then, she came back again with 2 plates of the snack-size sandwiches – one for me, one for him and whispered to him, “because it’s ok, you don’t drink.”
We had such a mellow time, talking and sipping and people watching that we returned the next three afternoons, and sat ourselves in RoseAlba’s section to enjoy her personalized, personable service.
One year later, we found ourselves in Vegas again and couldn’t resist a visit to this lounge. RoseAlba was taking care of another section, but she came right over, called my husband by name and asked if he would like his coffee black and if I would like my favorite cabernet. We were BLOWN AWAY – a year and thousands of customers later, she remember our names, our favorite drinks and, yes, brought 2 plates of the snack sandwiches, just as before.
She continues to remember my husband (who works a couple times of year in Vegas) – and even after she transferred to waitressing in the casino: she recognized him and greeted him in the main casino at the Paris.
D2,
A wonderful story about the waitress in Las Vegas. My guess is that she does quite well in tips!
Dennis