How Excellent Customer Service Attracts Excellent Customers | Ramit's Brain Trust

Hello, my name's Stephen Dublonica, and I'm the author of the book Waiter Confessions of a Cynical Waiter.

Steven, welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

I am thrilled to talk to you.

I read your blog.

For years and years. It was anonymous. I tried to figure out who you were. Couldn't do it. And then I saw the news years ago that you were coming out with a book, and you came out with your identity, and it was amazing. Your writing is one of the inspirations for my blog as well. So I want to thank you for being here.

Thank you.

So let's start by just talking about what happens in a restaurant. What do most people think is happening in a restaurant? And what is your take on what's actually happening?

Well, people think that a waiter has a very simple job, okay? Just come, deliver the food in exchange for tips. You know, show some salesmanship and know how to smile. But the reality is that people are extraordinarily complex, and the demands they bring into the restaurant are very complex. So you as the waiter, you end up becoming a joke teller, a bouncer. You have to be a psychic. You have to know a lot about the psychology of the people you're dealing with. And people have such varying sets of expectations of what they want. And some people come in, they just want to have something to eat, and some people come in and they want to have their status confirmed in some way. How the heck do you do that? So it makes the restaurant business a very complicated one.

Fascinating. How many customers would you say that you interacted with in your 10 years of working in the restaurant business?

Oh, tens and tens of thousands. Yeah, tens of thousands.

So it gives you an opportunity to really see the differences in people, try different approaches out, and see what works with different types of people.

That's correct.

Okay, so we're gonna talk all about this. The psychology, the testing. I love it when you talk about the difference between people who wanna come in and just have an efficient meal versus status. Let's dive into that. Cause I think that's a nice place to start. How do you know what type of person someone is soon as they sit down?

I've always said this. This is going to always get me into trouble. Waiters are a lot like strippers.

Okay?

Okay. And what you've got to figure out is, are they going to tuck an apron, a dollar into my apron, or can I take them for a culinary lap dance? All right. You have to size that customer up immediately when they walk up.

So how do you do it?

Well, part of it has a lot to do with experience. You have a sense of how, how this person carries themselves, how they're dressed, what time of day they've arrived. You know, do they, you know, do they turn white with horror looking at the menu? That's never a good sign. And then you have to see, is this a business meeting? Is this a romantic interlude? Is this a first date? Is this a married couple? You know, and you have to. You have to juggle all these variables in your head and you have to decide, okay, what is the emotional lay of the land here? And then you go to the customer and you want to find out, is this a person who wants to eat and be left alone and leave, or is this a person who wants to savor this experience? Say they're a foodie, and I use that as a pejorative term. But if they're a foodie and they want to get into the food and the wine, the aspects of the service, you know, or are these people that are going to want to interact with the server, or these people who don't care about you, you know, they want you to be unobtrusive and off to the side. You have to figure that all out within the first minute of arriving at the table.

And I imagine you get much better at this. Like, how many years did it take you to become pretty intuitive?

It took me. Well, I was lucky because, see, I had. I had a unique background before I got into all this. I studied to be a priest, and then I was worked in psychiatric hospitals and mental health care. So you were groomed for this? Yeah, I mean, well, let me tell you, if you can deal with psychopaths trying to kill you, you can deal with restaurant customers. Okay. And it gave me. So I was one up on a lot of people who walked. I was older when I started waiting tables. I was 30, which is kind of advanced stage for. To start that business. And then also I had that background. So I kind of came in with the. With that kind of worldview. And when I. But. But the actual learning curve, it was about six, seven months. Okay. I was at a restaurant that was. Was a prison camp, actually run by a maniac. And it was a wonderful experience because it, it told you how not to do things, right? And I picked up a lot of what held me in good stead later.

So when people say this phrase, don't judge a book by its cover, what's your take on that? Because you would have to size someone up in 30 to 60 seconds.

Well, you don't want to. Well, when we say judge a book by its cover, we're making a value judgment about that entire person's life. You know, I'm just trying to figure out how to sell them. And as much, you know, because like I said, we're like strippers, we want to separate you from as much of your money as possible. I'm not making a value judgment on your worth as a person. I'm just trying to figure out the cues that you're sending out or how much I can sell you or upsell you or persuade you to buy these things.

Okay, so let's talk about this. Tipping is amazing. It's one of two topics that no matter if you write about these two topics, you will guaranteed get hundreds of comments.

Lots of rage.

Lots of rage. I mean, lots of rage. Oh, I can already tell you how the comments go. Oh, 20% is normal. Why should they get paid that? If they need tips, they should go work somewhere else. Well, if you can't afford it, you shouldn't go out to eat.

Dah, dah, dah, dah.

That and the price of weddings. Oh, my God. It's like. Okay, so you say you're trying to separate the customers from their money.

That's right.

Okay.

It is a business, Any business. You're trying to do that.

Mm. So tell us about it. So you walk in and you size them up, and then what happens?

And then. Well, it varies considerably, because if you're a regular. Right. So say you come into my restaurant a couple of times, and I've waited on you. Now I have a pattern for your behavior. I understand the health of your wallet. I understand something more about your taste. Now, I armed with more data, I can make better recommendations. So now I go, okay, Ramet, like, you know, he liked the osso buco the last time, so maybe he'll like the. He'll like the rack of lamb. He enjoyed the amaroni that we had. Maybe he'll like this wine. So now I know more. When it's a complete stranger, then it's as you're talking to them, and you try and engage what their interests are in food, you quickly kind of figure out, does this person know about food? Do they understand what they're talking?

Like, what's an example where you could tell they know about it or they don't.

If they want Portuguese with their dinner, then we're like, okay, we know.

Got it.

I'm dealing with right away. Or someone who is very unfamiliar with.

The cuisine, so they're like, what is this?

What is this? And that's fine. And I think the worst mistake you can make is to pray into ignorance and to sell them the most expensive thing. That's what you don't want to do. And that's what I never did as a waiter is I never tried to push you toward the most expensive thing. I would see what do you, like, get you toward something I know you're going to enjoy. And then I would, the upsell would come when I would pair something that would accentuate that meal. So wine is all about, you know, you match the wine to the food.

Yeah.

And I would present you with a couple of options and I would give you a medium priced option, I would give you a pricier option. And I would say, and, you know, if you want to go all out, you can go for this, this bottle.

And did you have a sense that, you know, 10% of people would go for the all out option?

You know, that's surprising. You almost never know. High end bottles, very expensive wine, they tend to sell themselves because they're either very difficult to get and you have them and no one else can get them. And the customer who is a wine snob is going to know coming in that this is what they want. So the $5,000 bottle of Latour is usually, you don't have to push it. The customer knows it's there and they want it. The trick is you want to start selling, especially from the owner's point of view. You want to sell for 50, the bottle you bought for 20. Yep. You know, and, and, and maybe more than one bottle. So you start, you start pushing that. And wine by the glass is, you know, an owner's favorite.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I love these little tells that you reveal. You know, if they say, what is this? You know that you're probably not dealing with a foodie, or if they order port, you're like, oh, okay, got it. I have the same thing. In my business, if people say, if the first question they ask is, how much does it cost? They're never going to buy.

Right.

And these tells become very predictable. What's fascinating is to that person, they don't know that they're predictable. But you've seen so many other people that you're like, oh, I know exactly.

What'S going to happen next and that and that. And, and then when people say, well, how do you know what this customer is going to want or what this customer is going to be like? It's, it's, you're right. It's the sheer repetition. You know, people are not as unique as snowflakes.

Nope.

Right. They are, they are. They all tend to behave in the same way. And you unconsciously pick up a lot of the tells that they have in terms of dress, in terms of mannerisms, in terms of personal personality. So you kind of all process it to the point where it's almost an unconscious. An unconscious thing.

It's like the Amazon people who bought this tend to buy that taken to a human, intuitive level.

Right, right. Better than Amazon. I don't think the computer, they have the algorithm yet that can do what we do.

So when we talk about this is a business and we talk about we want to have customers, our motto is we want students for life. We're not just trying to get them to join once. In fact, we don't allow them to join our flagship courses. If they have credit card debt, we don't want their money. We say, save your money, pay it off, come back here. We want students for life. So in a way, we both want regulars. What's the role of hospitality and service that we can apply? In other words, if we don't work at a restaurant, what are some of the things that we can do in our own lives? Based on what you Learned over nearly.

10 years, I would say that there are people you want in your life and there are people you don't. Okay, okay. And that. And. And you have to figure out what you want to get out of this transaction, as well as how to. What's going to benefit that person. You know, it's, it's. It is very difficult. You have to know yourself. You have to know what you want. You have to know what you don't want. Right. And how much are you, you know, how much of your need for money is balanced by how much is your need for sanity or integrity or peace of mind? And how can you balance those all out? So I would have customers who would come in and they would be very, very difficult. I had one customer, she was so ocd, she had to have her pepper and her oil and her drink, and it all had to be lined up in a certain way and, you know, drove us all inside. Same, you know, And I remember saying, I. I'm going to murder this woman one day. And then one day it hit me, just give the lady what she wants. Because in this case, if you gave her what she wanted, she behaved the rest of the time. And she was a good tipper, and she was actually one of the people who would stop you on the street and ask you how you were doing. She actually treated like a human being. She was actually a nice person. So I learned in that instance what it took for me to stay sane and what it took for her to be a good customer. It's a balance. You understand what I'm saying? You have to find that balancing act.

And you mentioned she treated you like a human being. Sometimes I think, like, for example, if you want to hide, if you want to be invisible in New York, just put on a doorman's uniform and no one will look at you twice. You're invisible. But if you see them, you say, hey, how's it going? How's your son? Da, da, da. Oh, can I get you a cup of coffee while I'm out? That goes a shockingly long way. Oh, it does. I think a lot of times when we think about the people who support us, whether it's the wait staff, whether it's doorman, whether it's the person at the grocery store, actually just taking 10 extra seconds and saying, how's your day going? Can go a long way. Okay, so let's spend just a couple minutes on the people you worked with. You talked about the front, the beautiful, elegant front of the restaurant, but in the back, it's like, you know, the Titanic. People are putting coal, and there's flames everywhere. What is that like once you get behind those doors?

One of the biggest problems in a restaurant is that waiters and the kitchen staff, they're like Palestinians and Israelis. They live in the same spot, but they hate each other. And the reasons are very simple. Because the kitchen staff comes in at nine in the morning, and sometimes they leave at midnight or later. Sometimes these guys are working 12, 13, 14, 15 hour shifts. The waiters are coming in at 3. You know, they're leaving at midnight. And they've made double the money, triple the money. And there have been efforts to make that disparity less incongruous, but still, waiters are doing better than most kitchen. Kitchen workers. So right off the bat, you have a tension between the front of the house and the back of the house. What? You need the back of the house in order to do your job. So in addition to knowing how to deal with the customers, you now you have to have know how to deal with the staff in the back and that. And that means dealing with a whole bunch of different cultures, languages, you know, things like that. And I found little things like giving the busboys a ride home at the end of the night. You know, that was. That was A big deal.

What would that do for you? So you did it maybe because you're nice, but what else would you do?

I think. I think I did it well. I remember one time I did it because I was completely nice, because it was a blizzard. But, you know, sometimes you're doing it just to be a good person, but in the back of your head, is this going to. Are they going to be more attentive to what I need on the floor?

Right.

You know, but the thing is, is if you do it solely, cravenly to, you know, butter them up to make you. No way. That's not gonna work.

Yeah.

It's inauthentic. It is inauthentic if you do it because you've made a relation. Let me put you this way. All this stuff is about relationships. All of this stuff, whether it's tipping or working in the back or whatever, or cultivating a regular or whatever it is, this is all about the relationships that you form. Form business relationships, personal relationship, doesn't matter. And what happens is, in these moments, who you are comes out. CEOs will watch a candidate, how they interact with the janitor. They will watch how they interact with the waiter. If you're nice to me, because I'm going to hire you, I. Okay, but if you're imperious with the busboy, how are you going to be a leader? Are you going to be a toxic leader? Are you one of these people? You know, and I always say women will watch men very carefully in restaurants because they know how they treat the staff. How they tip is going to be indicative. It could be indicative of how everyone has a bad day, but it could be indicative how going to treat them into a relationship. So it's all about relationships. And what you do in the restaurant can potentially reveal a lot about yourself.

Fascinating, right? It's very subtle, what you do. It's almost like Game of Thrones going on on a daily basis.

Yeah, yeah.