How To Be a Good Customer in Three Easy Steps

Today, as I'm sure no one in the world knows, is my six-month anniversary of being hired as a server.  In fact, I'm not even sure why I know that myself.  It sounds like I'm in some sort of weird relationship... 

Anyway, the experience has been and continues to be a very interesting one, and it certainly has given me a lot of new perspective on how I approach interactions with people who are serving me.  Based on my experiences so far, I am ready to offer three basic rules for how to be a good customer.  These apply specifically to a restaurant setting, but I'm sure they can easily be applied to any customer service situation.  By following these three easy rules (and their corollaries), you can ensure that you are well-liked and appreciated by any customer service professional you encounter.

Rule #1: Remember that your server is a person.

--Corollary 1: The proper response to "How are you today?" is not "Coffee."  When a person asks you that question (even if, horror of horrors, you haven't yet had coffee today), the standard social practice is to exchange pleasantries and then go from there.  I mean, if this is a restaurant, do you really think I'm not going to get around to asking what you want to drink?  Hey, even if you don't want to further validate my personhood by asking how I am doing in return, at least answer the question before moving on (and believe me, the extra five seconds or so you feel like this politeness might delay your precious coffee are nothing compared to how said coffee will plummet down your server's list of priorities if you aren't polite).

--Corollary 2: Servers, like all normal humans, can only be in one place at a time.  Therefore, they also engage in the standard human practice of prioritizing the activities they need to perform.  Chances are, they also have four other tables that require attention.  Therefore, you will have to wait for things sometimes.  Don't blame your server; blame physics.  Helpful comments like "I'm still waiting for such and such random request I made to be fulfilled" do not cause the laws of physics to be suspended even temporarily.

--Corollary 3: Your server cannot read your mind.  Therefore, if you would like something to happen, you're going to have to ask.  Your incredulous stare and wrinkled up nose and high pitched cry of "You put this all on the same bill??" will not somehow go back in time and inform me that you wanted the check to be split if you didn't say anything about it.  Nor will I be able to somehow know that "they always make this dish for me some other random way that isn't in the menu" before I bring it to you the normal way... unless you say something. There are 25 other servers that work here, and I've never seen you before, and even if I have, it still isn't my job to commit your favorite idiosyncratic order to memory.  Also, servers have no other form of extrasensory perception either-- if your food is cold, I'm sorry, but I had no way of knowing that because I didn't touch or taste it on the way out to you.  The plate was warm, and the cooks are the ones responsible.  In summary, servers do not deserve blame for failure to possess superpowers.

--Corollary 4: Servers, like other citizens of free countries, make decisions on their own free will.  So feel free to try commanding me like I'm your slave, but just remember that I have the freedom to delay, demean, or disregard your request.  I do so at the risk of my tip, but I'll let you in on a secret: I already know that the demanding people are NOT the ones who end up tipping well in the end anyway.  It's a value judgment.  I don't have time to be running back and forth on your every whim when I know you aren't going to be a good tipper.  Meanwhile, my nice tables that I can make bank on would just be sitting there waiting, and that just isn't going to happen.  Requests work just as well, if not better, than commands.

**Personal pet peeve related to this topic: "Please and thank you."  As in, "do this crazy thing I want, please and thank you."  This clever ruse perpetrated by rude people takes two normally polite phrases and combines them into one impolite one, making what seems like a request into a command about which the recipient has no choice.  Adding the thank you makes unquestioning obedience a foregone conclusion.  But what if I don't do it?  Will you want to take your thank you back?  Also, if I do follow your bidding, you probably won't say thank you again thinking that the first compound one covered it, which is also rude.  General rule: Please = polite.  Thank you = polite.  Please and thank you = annoying.


Rule #2: Remember that you are a person (i.e. not God).

--Corollary 1: The customer is not always right.  Sometimes, they are wrong and we're just letting them think they're right.  Even if they were always right, this would not be an excuse for being demeaning or overly demanding of their servers, who are people exactly like them and don't deserve the rudeness.

--Corollary 2: The whole restaurant does not revolve around you.  Darn physics, it gotcha again.  Basically, if your server has five tables, they each have just as much right to his or her time as you do, and it would be helpful if you understood this.  Making your server run around like a crazy person is not only rude to him or her, but also to everyone else he or she is serving (and those people, by the way, are noticing how rude you're being).

--Corollary 3: Order off the freaking menu.  You are not so special that not one of these 70 choices is good enough for you (And if you are, why are you at this plain old little restaurant?).  Hey, if you don't eat pork and you want turkey bacon instead of regular, ok.  You're a vegetarian and you want extra hash browns instead of meat, I can deal with that.  But there is absolutely no need to start picking ingredients from other dishes and haphazardly combining them into your own creation.  Go to BD's for that.  Do you have any idea how the cooks look at me when I send back your order? They hate you, and they hate me for trying to accommodate you.  We have a menu, and those are the choices.  If you don't want any of them, there are plenty of other restaurants.


Rule #3: Tip well.

Honestly, you can do whatever you want with the other rules if you follow this one.  I don't care how demanding and incomprehensible you were, if you leave 25% or more, you can sit with me anytime.  Conversely, you can follow all the other rules and still be remembered as a worthless cheapskate if you don't follow this one.  Remember, this is a server's livelihood, the proverbial bottom line.  This is how to make an impact in the life of a server.


So that's it!  Follow those three easy steps, and you will be the toast of the customer service industry in no time.  Thanks for reading, and good luck!

(By the way, I realize that some of my suggestions might sound slightly angry... and I'm ok with that.  Truth be told, some of these things are frustrating, and writing about them is helpful in processing that.  Just know that, all in all, I actually enjoy being a server and that most people aren't like the ones I'm using as my "hypothetical" examples, nor am I suggesting that anyone who reads this blog is like that.  I assume that my readers are the very models of decorum and courtesy, and it's written using the collective "you" just for effect.  Just don't let me catch you being one of those people, please and thank you :)

p.s. Am I right? Wasn't that annoying?

p.p.s. Did you like how I closed the parenthesis with a smiley, though?  That's an online grammar innovation that I am, as far as I know, the pioneer of.  It has nothing to do with customer service, but smiling at people who are serving you is helpful too... ok, I'm done now.