Last night I went to dinner with Tricia. The Melting Pot. Y-U-M. That spells yum, and it means delicious. Anytime a restaurant puts a whole pot of cheese on the table, followed by a giant pot of chocolate, it just feels right. In fact that may be how I picture heaven.
We were chatting our waitress up while she stirred our pot 'o golden cheese and I told her I used to be a server and one trick I did to get better tips and make people happy was to give them fortune mints at the end of their meal. What you ask are fortune mints? Of course you haven't heard of them (unless you frequented the Hops in Crystal City) I invented them. Consider this post the copyright.
Basically, I just bought mints, wrote up a bunch of fortunes for people (eg: The person sitting across from you will not bring you longterm happiness - good stuff like that) and tied them around the mints. I put them with the check at the end of the meal.
People ate them up. Literally and figuratively.
We all laughed about how wonderfully clever this was, and then Tricia and I went on with our meal.
But, lo and behold--little waitress lady was not your average server.
At the end of the meal, satisfied and full, Tricia and I opened our checks to discover little white fortune notes stapled to our mints. She even took it to the next step by giving us lucky numbers!! My biggest mistake was probably not playing them at the Lotto last night, but regardless, we got a good laugh and were forced to tip well after I promised her fortune mints brought results.
Here's my takeaway. This girl is not your average server. Talk about clever - and being astute enough to not only listen to your customer, pretend she's witty, and then actually take action on what you hear. Big results. Huge Tip. Happy customers.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Fortune Mints
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hits
| Get a hit counter here. |
Posts
4 comments:
Yum. The Melting Pot seems like a place the Mastie's would love. It's been said that when you have experienced bad customer service you tell 10 people. When you have good service you tell 4. Good for you to share the positive...although I have read your accounts of the airlines....
Yes, that little nugget of wisdom cost me 50% of the bill. (I felt obligated after Cynthia went to so much trouble.) Shauri, next time don't give the wait staff too many clever ideas...I won't be able to afford going out to dinner with you!
Ha. That is awesome...so what was your fortune?
I can't remember what my fortune was. I do know that it didn't say I wasn't well matched to the person across the table from me! :)
Nan--Melting Pot is coming to Ann Arbor. As soon as it does, Kristin and I will give you the full intro to this culinary wonder.
Post a Comment