Sample the Menu:

The other evening while having dinner at a quick casual restaurant, the manager approached the man sitting at the table next to ours. The man was eating one of those gut busting, caramel drizzled, three ice cream scoop desserts. The manager’s approach was, “How are you enjoying the dessert?” The man responded “that the dessert was just so-so.” The manager then responded, “Oh thank you for your input, I myself have not had that item and was curious about it?”

Imagine this, you are guest at a restaurant and a management tells you that they have not sampled the offerings. Would you want to go back to this place? Maybe if the management had sampled the menu, they would not serve a so-so dessert.

The same manager later approach our table and asked “Is Everything OK?” Creating customer advocacy is really simple, it involves starting a conversation with your guests that has some heft, some depth, some emotional involvement. There will be times when a server has not sampled the entire menu and can be excused, however there is never a time when a manager has not been able to Sample the Menu!