Great customer service starts from the ground up. For this post we’ve partnered with one of our long-running sponsors, TELUS, a company obsessed with improving customer service every day. They're asking our fellow #TeamTELUS advocates to share stories of companies across Canada that are showing us how (and why!) we can all expect more.
Bar-none, the best customer service I've had in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»is at a place where you wouldn't really expect to appreciate customer service at all: at a self-serve all-you-can-eat buffet.
at 49th and Main is a place I've been frequenting since 1996. What originally drew me in was certainly not the prospect of a friendly staff, it was the budget-friendly buffet. For the past 20 years they've offered a delicious lunch and dinner selection of 6 main dishes, naan bread, papadum, salad bar and desserts. In the 90's the price was $8.95 and even though it's inched up with inflation over the years it's still a bargain at $10.95 per person. I now bring my family to eat there at least a couple of times a month.
My son in 2008 and 2015. We actually posed the first photo because he wasn’t eating solids yet, but *we* did and would bring him along.
I've been going there for two decades but it was seven years back, right after my son was born, when my wife and I noticed a positive shift in the atmosphere. Visually the place hadn't changed, and the food was as consistently delicious and cost-effective as it had been for the previous decade-and-a-bit, but the service changed. The servers who asked us if we'd like drinks, or to look at a menu, they were friendlier. The staff at the front seemed genuinely happy to see us there, and you could tell that a corporate culture shift had happened. We were getting smiled at often, and after a while they knew what we wanted before we even asked for it. In time we learned that this shift occurred because the place had been turned over to a new owner. Our love affair with great, affordable Indian food grew even more as we got to know this new proprietor, Steve Ram.
Steve!
Steve is usually working the front cash register when we go in, and he makes a point of saying hello and stopping at our table and chatting with us. He knows all of us by name and he makes sure we're happy with our meals, and with the service from his staff. If we grab some take-out samosas on our way out he'll often sneak a couple extras into our bag, and during Diwali he'll give us a boxful of delicious sweets just to let us know he appreciates our business. And we're not alone in this treatment. When we visit, there are multiple tables that he chats with, and you can tell that the people sitting at them also come here often, and that he treats them well. It helps that Steve is genuinely a people person, and when he talks to you about what's going on in your life (and his, he really opens up), you can tell that he is actually interested to hear it. His attitude is obviously contagious with everyone that works for him, and the place is bright and inviting because of him. He takes All India above and beyond when it comes to customer service, and is one of the reasons I plan to continue eating at this spot for the next 20 years!
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