Title: Beyond The Pickle – A Slice of Exceptional Customer Care
Featuring: Peter Wilson
Peter: In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about going beyond the pickle. You’re probably wondering what I mean by that. So if you’ll recall back in episode 101, we talked about Bob Farrell, whose rallying cry for customer service was give them the pickle. And what that meant was going beyond regular customer service and giving the customers what they actually want. Listening to the customers and then giving them something extraordinary.
And in his case, it all started with a customer who was looking to get an extra pickle with their hamburger and milkshake that they got at his restaurant called Farrell’s. And that was normally the case for the customer. One time they went in and they asked for the extra pickle and the wait staff said, We’ll have to charge you for that pickle, and that incensed this customer. And so that customer wrote a letter to Bob Farrell, the president of Farrell’s restaurant, and said, I will never go to your restaurant again if I have to pay for a pickle. And so he, Bob, went to his staff and said, Listen, guys, we got to give him the pickle.
And that became this rallying cry for his customer service at his restaurants to give him the pickle, give him something extra. Listen to the customer, listen to what they want, and give it to him. I was explaining this story to Paul Lee, who is our SEO expert. He happens to live in Cape Town in South Africa. And I told him about this story, and he immediately said, Oh, that sounds like Tern and Tender.
And I said, Okay, tell me more. So Turn and Tender is this incredible steakhouse in South Africa. They have about 10 to 15 locations around the country. Paul was relating that he had gone to Turn and Tender at a location that was near a church that he was going to. The second time they had gone to the restaurant, the waitstaff made a very obvious attempt to get everybody’s name at the table.
And they wanted to know everybody’s name, and at the time they didn’t think anything of it. They thought, oh, this is nice. They want to know our name. The next time that Paul went to that restaurant, he sat down to have his steak dinner, and the wait person came to the table and picked up the knife that was at the table and took it away and replaced it with a beautiful steak knife emblazoned with Paul’s name. So Paul’s name, Paul Lee, had been engraved on a steak knife for him to use every time he comes to turn and tender.
And Paul was simply blown away. He couldn’t believe it. And he was explaining to me that they really don’t even consider going to any other steak restaurant in the area. How could they? Turn and Tender has turned dining into this amazing personalized experience, it really just goes beyond what you would expect.
It was just an amazing thought. I’d never thought of it. Talk about creating customer loyalty. What an amazing thing to do. I got to thinking, what other things could businesses do that would personalize the experience for their customers?
So I’m challenging everybody who’s listening to this podcast today to think about that. How can you go beyond the pickle in your business and wow your customers? If you’ve got any experiences like this, we would love to share them with our audience. I look forward to hearing from you. So let’s keep giving them the pickle, and let’s go beyond the pickle and provide exceptional customer care.
Till next time, thank you.
Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.
