Destination Success: 'Welcome -- your table has been given away'

Does anyone listen to what they say any more? My husband and I just returned from a wonderful 9-day trip to the Olympic Peninsula and Canada which a long term dream come true. Of course, we had some great customer service moments. Like spiders, we are ready to pounce at any time and bring the memories home.

The good news is that we experienced some of the best customer service ever at two grand old hotels: The Fairmont Empress in Victoria and The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver in Vancouver, both in British Columbia. You have not lived until you have had high tea at the Empress Hotel. You want to lick the Devon cream off your crown-embossed plate but feel uncomfortable with royalty staring from their formal portraits.

At the Hotel Vancouver, we enjoyed staying on the concierge level where coffee arrives five minutes after your wake-up call. It was hard to come back to: "Your bagel is in the toaster oven. I'm outta here!"

I'm not going to disappoint you. We had an experience at a restaurant about which we are still talking. We had driven about 40 minutes outside of Victoria to eat lunch in at a luxurious resort nestled above a picturesque fjord. (Victoria is on Vancouver Island which is the 10th largest island in the world. When you consider that England is No. 9, you get the picture.)

When we arrived, we were awed by the view from the restaurant and the elegant appointments. The hostess greeted us warmly, checked the book and then said, "Oh, your table has been given away, I'll have to check to see what happened." She gestured toward the best table, which faced the fjord directly. A few moments later, she escorted us to a great table with a view, but not as good a view as Table No. 1.

If she hadn't told us there was a problem, we wouldn't have had a problem. As it was, we felt miffed.

We looked at Table No. 1 longingly. We spent about five minutes discussing how I had called in April for the reservation and that we really could have gotten a better picture from that table. The hostess had given us a problem, and we gnawed on it.

For some reason, we weren't given a menu at first, although we were served water and a bread basket. The hostess came over and said, "Oh, I guess I forgot to give you a menu. Here it is."

Before she said that, we were lulled by the beauty of the surroundings. She telegraphed that she had messed up again and we were waiting. If she hadn't said anything, we would have just thought that it was the practice of the restaurant to give people a few moments to settle down before throwing a menu at them.

Now, we were both silently worrying about the food. We were thinking: "If there have been two screw-ups already, what will happen with the food?"

The hostess did not disappoint.

She came by and brightly said, "Do you have any questions about the menu?" (Our waitress had already taken drink orders.)

"Tell me about the venison." I said.

"Oh, I'm a vegetarian, so I really don't know. My sister said it was great when she ate here."

We didn't need to know her dietary preferences, and now she has us feeling vaguely guilty that we are about to eat Bambi.

This little experience teaches three salient lessons about customer service:

If there is a problem, don't telegraph it to the customer.

Take care of any issues as unobtrusively as possible, e.g. If you have having problems getting a client's papers out on time, figure out a solution before you begin whining.

Don't share your personal preferences unless they are in the best interests of the business deal you are working on. Think of a life insurance agent saying, "Well, I don't recommend disability insurance for my family because it is so expensive."

Most importantly, don't say the first thing that comes into your head to a customer.

Even when dreams come, it looks like customer service adventures and lessons can't be avoided.

John O'Donnell contributed to this column.

(Sinara Stull O'Donnell is a writer and professional speaker in the career arena through her company Sinara Speaks.)