So you think your customers have high expectations, do you? Let me introduce you to perhaps the house of highest expectations in the world: The Inn At little Washington, a double five diamond–and Forbes 5 star–institution nestled in the absolute middle of nowhere in Virginia–in other words, about an hour and a half drive from anywhere its customers are likely to live. Which means: a three hour round trip in which to discuss both your high expectations and your disappointment if those expectations aren't fulfilled.
How does the Inn successfully, year after year, handle these expectations and the attendant risk of disappointment?A clue can be found above the entrance to its world-famous kitchen, where there's a curious, five-word inscription as follows:
Anticipation • Trepidation • Inspection • Fulfillment • Evaluation
These five words describe a system of thinking with which Chef Patrick O'Connell trains his staff to think, and feel, about each meal they are preparing and serving–the meals which make the Inn a destination in itself, with all the pressures and expectations for diners and waitstaff that this entails.
I had a chance to get Chef O'Connell to explain the significance of each stage, and why the process of thinking of dining in stages matters to the work of the Inn’s foodservice employees in being aware of, meeting, and ideally exceeding its guests' very, very high expectations.
The Five Stages of Dining is a tool, a simple exercise that helps our team understand that the experience we offer our guests is much more significant than the several hours they might spend in our restaurant. Our relationship with them may begin years before they arrive and continue for months after they depart. By understanding the predictability of the 5 Stages of Dining… our staff feels more in control and more comfortable in their handling of Guests. They know how to respond to each stage the Guest is going through and how to better identify with them.
By breaking down the dining experience into 5 Stages, we illustrate that the process begins long in advance of a Guest's arrival. Every evening someone tells us they've been planning to visit us for ten or fifteen years--that The Inn at Little Washington has been on their "bucket list" for that long. Even if they've just been thinking about the evening on the drive here or fantasizing about what they might order for several hours they are in a state of:
Anticipation
On arrival as the Guest walks through the front door they're inevitably gripped by a moment of:
Trepidation
Their fantasy collides with reality and for a short while they fear that their expectations may be too high or that something will go wrong or that something or someone will mar the perfect evening. Guests inevitably bring all the negative baggage of previous bad restaurant experiences with them. We call this their restaurant bruises.
Only after Guests are comfortably seated at their table and after they’ve taken the second sip of their first drink are they relaxed enough to be fully present. Before this moment they haven’t really arrived and have hardly been aware of their surroundings. Now they begin the process of:
Inspection
The guest is now looking for flaws or imperfections in the overall picture and it is crucial that they not find any. They are sizing up the place to determine if it is above or beneath their expectations.
Only after the main course is delivered will a diner allow themselves to be completely transported into a blissful state of:
Fulfillment
If checked in on before the main course has been served they will invariably respond that “Everything’s been great so far,” implying that we haven’t yet passed the test—regardless of how many courses they’ve consumed.
As the meal concludes with dessert and coffee the Guest realizes that he will have to prepare for this magical interlude to come to an end and they begin to prepare for the transition back to reality. They discuss the meal in relation to comparable dining experiences and rate it accordingly. At the presentation of the check the wife sometimes leans in and asks her husband how much the meal cost. He knows it was worth it if she smiles when he tells her the cost. This process of
Evaluation
...might continue for weeks or months afterwards when friends and colleagues at the office inquire about the experience wondering if it was worth it and whether or not they would do it again. If a couple or party are making plans to return on their way out we are reasonably certain we’ve been successful in getting them over the hurdle of Evaluation."
As you can tell, the stages are to some extent unique to the Inn’s situation as one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. But Chef O’Connell went on to explain how they can be modified to suit most any purchasing situation:
This process can be applied to any service experience. These stages can be re-formulated to suit the transaction taking place, whether it is purchasing a new home or car or having a medical procedure. There will always be a degree of universality in human behavior which can be better analyzed and understood by breaking it down into distinct stages. De-mystifying any process reduces stress for service providers and gives them the confidence to take charge of a situation. When they know what to expect it’s easier to meet expectations.”
Micah Solomon is a customer service consultant, customer experience speaker and bestselling business author, most recently of High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service
