At my regular burger spot, halfway through the meal, the waitstaff always comes back to the table…
“Is everything OK here?”
They ask the question, as they reach for a wooden stick that sits in a tin bucket on the table.
If you say “Yes, thanks” they flip the stick over and walk away.
If you have an issue, I guess they address it, and the stick stays down until it’s sorted.
One end of the stick is red, and one is white. It’s a signal system for the team to say that they had checked in on that table. A procedure.
Sometimes, the waitstaff does this for the system. Interrupting any conversation, asking the question quickly, hoping to get away in a flash with the stick up the other way, everything rosy. In the moment, they win.
Other times, the waitstaff does this for the customer. They ask the question authentically, wait patiently for an answer, and are calm and collected, before quietly doing the stick thing. In the moment, the customer wins.
The point is, if you’re doing marketing, advertising, or really delivering service at all, it’s important to ask who it’s for. If there’s more focus each repetition on getting a sale for you, or following a process to tick a box than there is on bringing value, over time the outcome is probably going to disappoint.
