Express service
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-03-14 08:30:01 - Graham Ellis"Express" shouts the marketing material for the place I'm staying in for a couple of days in Cambridge, and even though I'm close to being laid up there with the flu, I thought I would nip down for a quite bite last night in the bar/restaurant; I needed food, and they're in a remote spot far from anywhere so they have something of a captive audience. A menu with just five, simple, main courses (pie and chips, chicken tikka massalla, fish and chips ..) also kinda implies that it's going to be cheap and cheerful.
Perhaps I should have worried when it took them five minutes to get my order in through the till; a new recruit has to be trained, for sure, but to have been asked not just twice but three times to repeat my order ("a fish and chips") should have set warning bells ringing.
I was glad of the morning newspapers to read as I waited, and I learnt of life in Cambridge - from yesterday's latest road casualty through the letters column praising addenbrooke's hospital through to the soccer woes of Cambridge united.
Moving on from the Cambridge News, the Independent carried a comparison of the three political parties and their green credentials, and much more; I did "skim read" as I really wasn't feeling academically bright.
Then I re-read the menu, and examined my bar chit to see how long I had been waiting. The table beside me was occupied by a couple of businessmen who had arrived after me, and who were served in front. And just as I was about to stand in line at the bar and chase, my food arrived ... 40 minutes from completion of the order.
We tend to look at "customer service" these days, and put ourselves in the shoes of the customer. I feel that the hotel operator hereabouts should do so, and take especial care to serve people on their own promptly. Actually, I rather suspect they knew they had a problem - no apology of course, but neither did anyone come round as they should in a good restaurant and check that everything was OK a few minutes after I had started. Oh yes - they knew that there service was anything but "Express".