I finished all segments of "The Perfect Server" video, and I now have 18 pages of notes on how to be the ultimate waitress.
Here's the most valuable thing I've learned so far: I completely changed my view on servers who start out saying "Hello, my name is...." I have to admit that I used to find this a little strange and completely unnecessary. Was it just some psycho-babble advice they had been told would subconsciously influence the diner into leaving a bigger tip? I felt the same way about it as this writer for Bon appetit magazine, in a blog post called "I'm Sick of Servers Who Tell Me Their Name:"
There's a reason why we don't introduce ourselves to each other in every situation in life. It's because we don't always need to know everybody's name. This is life, not kindergarten. When servers introduce themselves to me at a restaurant, it invokes a false sense of familiarity that makes me both uncomfortable and perturbed. If our entire relationship will consist mainly of me asking you for things and you getting those things for me, I don't think we need to be on a first name basis--especially if we're only going to know each other for roughly one hour.
Even back when I was a waitress in grad school, I never told customers my name because it felt too much like an overly friendly -- and blatantly manipulative --ploy.
Now I know differently! There is an excellent reason for telling your name to guests, particularly in a fine-dining restaurant. If you truly aim to be an ultimate waitress, then your goal is more than simply getting a big tip. Your goal is to provide such incredible service that your guests will make another reservation very soon and ask to be seated in your section.
Wow, this was a revelation. As an ultimate waitress, I can concentrate not only on great service for this meal, I can also focus on building a successful long-term relationship. This is exactly what I found to be key as a consultant. In my consulting work, it was never just about the immediate job at hand. It was about the building a long-term relationship so that the client would view me as the go-to girl whenever a similar need arose. The hardest thing about consulting is finding new projects and clients, and all of the time that you spend in that search is unbilled time. So if you can impress clients enough that they start calling you on the phone for work, you have not only made the money on the next contract, you've saved yourself from a spending what could have been a potentially large amount of unpaid time to get a new contract.
I really believe that this approach was key to my successful consulting years; unfortunately even that was apparently no match for the current economic tailspin. But I'm thrilled to find out that I can take the same approach now in waitressing. As a fine-dining customer, I was never in the group of people who became weekly regulars at restaurants spending $40-50 a person and up -- I was always the person who was there travelling on an out-of-town expense account, or there for some annual special event like an anniversary. But apparently there are such people, and if I can win them over, then that could mean lots more big-tip income for me, as well as professional satisfaction from achieving that ultimate status. To me, this is great news.
I'll post more revelations later. For now, here is a complete list with links to each of "The Perfect Server" video segments. This is just the order I watched them in, not necessarily the best order. Note that some of the segments re-use scenes from earlier segments in a new context, but that's actually good learning design:
Serving Beverages
Taking an Order Part 1
Taking an Order Part 2
The First Course
The Main Course
Dessert
Closing the Deal
Setting Up the Table
Setting the Mood
Tips for Great Serving
When Disaster Strikes
Tableside Manners
How to Upsell
Before the Doors Open
Food Safety and Sanitation
Server Reviews (final recap)
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