Everyone’s a VIP

There are many reasons why I am thankful for “wasting” so many years in the restaurant industry. A restaurant is a sort of microcosm of human social and business interaction. Problems occur and are solved (or blundered) in real-time. Sales and service are inextricably linked. And at the end of each night, all the servers drink and have sex.

I had a self-imposed rule that determined how I interacted with and treated my guests (if you worked at any decent restaurant, this is how you refer to “customers”). It arose out of a conversation I had with a manager at my very first job as a server:

Manager: “Ian, those are VIPs at table 5. Make sure you take real good care of them.”

Me: “Everyone’s a VIP.”

Manager: “Uh, yeah but they are [very important people].”

Me: “For me to treat them better would imply that I treat other people worse. I serve everyone the same way: Amazingly.”

I was tongue-in-cheek like this a lot (which is why most managers either loved or hated me), but I was serious about my main point. To me, this seems like a pretty good maxim for customer service. Just don’t let it fall into the traditional fate of maxims–that is, being engraved on a plaque, placed in the lobby and forgotten about.