Graciousness -- Never Goes Out of Style

As I write this I’m sitting in the sparely designed Museum Hill Cafe, part of a complex of small museums on a hill overlooking Santa Fe New Mexico. The views of the mountains are beautiful but that’s not why I’ve kept coming back here during my stay in Santa Fe. It’s because I feel at home here.

They offer wireless but they don’t have lots of people just sitting on their computers and not eating their food (unlike the COSI chain in Manhattan that hooks you in by offering free wireless only to shut if off during peak hours). Instead of making you get a waiter bring you your free refill of coffee or tea (iced or hot), they make it available for you to take, yourself. By being gracious even in these and other small ways they give the customer a feeling of control and being welcome.

True, we are living in a time when businesses are cutting back on the services they offer (like airlines that no longer even give main-cabin customers pretzels, let alone dinner, during a four hour flight at dinner time). But there are still ways to offer your customers services that matter to them in terms of their overall experience with you, without scuttling your profitability. It’s not about big things, it’s about simple and significant.

The coffee and tea refills would be free anyway. It’s how I get them that’s simple and significant. Do I drink more than I might if I had to flag down a busy member of the waitstaff? Maybe, but it also frees the waitstaff (very small and efficient here) to do more productive tasks.

And you know what? Because it helps make me feel at home and welcome, I’m not so conscious that everything I buy adds to my tab. And I end up buying more (I really didn’t need that terrific chocolate chip cookie that I got to accompany my free iced tea refill).

So as this year closes in tougher economic times than it began and we all think of ways to streamline our businesses, it seems even more important not to lose sight of how we can make our customers experience with us special. If we do, I have no doubt they’ll be loyal for years to come.