We are fortunate to have the most laid-back, easygoing customers on the planet. We are also fortunate to have one customer who is extremely (which is really not a strong enough word) difficult to please. When we see this guest on our reservation calendar, it forces us to operate at an even higher level of service than we do each and every day. We know that this client pays very, very close attention to all the details -- from the room setup, to the food layout, to the amount of ambient light -- and is not afraid to point out anything that is out of place.

We engaged this client every way we could think of. We looked for everything that had gone "wrong" with this client in the past and made sure we made preemptive corrections. The list is long of the hoops we jumped through for this client, but one example is the salad. At their last meeting, the client complained that we didn't serve enough salad (although it was the same amount we had always served). So this time we ordered twice as much salad, and we ate the cost. Needless to say, we had plenty of salad this time and didn't hear any complaints...about the salad.

As usual, there were many other things this client pointed out that were "wrong" or needed improved this time. Once we get past feeling defensive, we always take a good look at the suggestions. Sometimes the suggestions are good ones and we use them to get even better at what we do. Again, we are fortunate to have a customer who pushes us to be better than our best.

Why this is our favorite spark today:
This client challenges us. The result is that we proactively try to please this client now rather than simply react to everything that gets pointed out to us. We also tend to raise our game for all of our other clients when this happens.


Do you have any difficult clients? How do they help make you a better service provider? Tell us your story by leaving a comment