…is that you don’t have to put up with the most idiotic question in customer service: “How’s everything tasting?”
Anyone who knows about customer service will tell you that collecting customer feedback is essential both in satisfying the customer and in making sure they stay a customer. Table service at a restaurant is probably one of the best fields for customer feedback, since there are several customer-staff interactions in any transaction. A good service representative (for that’s what a waiter is) will do his best to collect as much feedback as he can as unobtrusively as he can.
“How’s everything tasting?” utterly fails in that regard. It’s narrowly drawn to only inquire about the food. Yes, that’s important, but it’s not all there is. There are lots of other factors that influence the customer’s satisfaction, ranging from the service itself to the restaurant environment. The customer can, and even sometimes does, tell the restaurant that there’s a problem that needs fixing. Who’s he gonna tell? That’s right, the waiter.
There’s another aspect to this that grates on me. That question was not invented by a waiter, especially not the airheaded 20-year-old woman who seems to be the type most likely to use it. It’s way, way too artificial. It smells strongly of consultant, with careful vetting by focus group before being mandated by management in a corporate office somewhere. It’s stilted and jarring.
I used to give the waiters and waitresses who use it a hard time. I don’t any more, because it’s counterproductive. As someone pointed out, hassling the person who handles your food is not a good idea.
I’d like to find the restaurant consultant who came up with “How’s it tasting?”, strap him to a chair, and send every waiter within 50 miles to ask him that question.
Until then, I’ll just avoid the places where it’s most endemic, and stay home and make chupaquesos, instead.