Creating a Great Experience

A couple of years ago, my daughter-in-law, Lori, was experiencing some health issues and through intuition and good detective work on Lori’s part, she was able to determine that these seemingly unrelated issues were all connected to an intolerance for gluten. In short, the food she was eating was making her sick.

For Lori this was revelatory. As she eliminated gluten from her diet, she started feeling better than she had felt for years. The cure was simple – eliminate all gluten from her diet. But it’s also complex. Any unintentional gluten consumption, which can come from something as simple as a sauce that uses small amounts of flour as a binder or breadcrumbs added to a hamburger, can cause some unpleasant reactions.

We’re a family that likes to eat out, so I have experienced this transition with Lori and observed her experiences while ordering from menus and interacting with the restaurant wait staff. Through a range of experiences in all types of restaurants I’ve noticed that the quality of the experience usually depends on how the waitperson views their role and the relationship between their role (as they see it) and their tool – the menu.

Here’s what I’ve observed;

The least satisfying experience is when the waitperson sees themselves as the ‘order taker’. Their mindset is, “I’m here to take your order” so when Lori asks questions about a item on the menu or a certain preparation, this is seen as complicating things – of getting the way of taking orders. The order taker views the menu as a tool for order-taking — like at fast food places where it is just pushing buttons. If there isn’t a button – it’s not on the menu.

Another kind of experience is when the waitperson has a menu that anticipates Lori’s needs so gluten free options are identified by GF. Even though this waitperson has a more helpful tool, it’s only better in the sense that it helps facilitate order-taking by making the GF options the only ones Lori has to choose from. Although this is intended to be helpful, it means that as the diner’s needs become more complex, their options become fewer and fewer. It also means that the menu is mostly a better tool for the order taker, not the restaurant patron.

The best experiences are when the waitperson is there to take the order but they see their role as someone who is an interpreter of the menu – to help you make a good decision. So, when Lori asks about gluten free, they may ask about the nature of her intolerance so that they can give her important information about the preparation of certain dishes. Or, for someone who doesn’t have a dietary restriction but is just having a hard time deciding, the waitperson may ask about their overall food preferences – if they like food that’s spicy or milder, for example. What’s important here is that they see their job as “interpreting the menu” to help the patron make the best choice based upon their individual needs. The more this waitperson can learn about what someone likes, or what their special dietary needs are, the better they can be at interpreting the menu and helping the diner make a better decision. It’s a holistic approach that has a very different starting place than taking orders off a menu.

People in this third group take a problem-solving approach to their job. Their interpretation of the menu starts with understanding the problem. The quality of the interpretation is not (only) about how well they understand the menu but also how well they understand the problem. Think about how different that is from order-taking. The quality of the interpretation comes from a combination of understanding the available tools and understanding the problem to be solved.

With the ‘order-taking’ experience, options become progressively fewer as a problem become more complex. Alternatively, in the problem solving experience, complexity is viewed as an interesting problem to be solved. This creates an opportunity for creativity and customization. Now, ask yourself, as a customer, which experience would you prefer?