I apologize for being away from the keyboard for a few weeks. I guess it’s just laziness and/or lack of discipline.
I’m back to catch up. I’m going to bury the lead to this story by providing a little background before making a point.
Most of you read something about the “commute from Hell” in the Washington, DC area when a few inches of snow combined with some bone-headed decisions about releasing workers early so plows couldn’t reach the snow. Result: commutes than ranged from a few to more than 12 hours. Unbelievable. Power outages were in the hundreds of thousands. Very few traffic lights, everything shut down.
I personally saw dozens of accidents, a car fire, dozens of abandoned cars, people stranded, confused, out of gas and generally wondering when they would ever get home.
The good old GPS with Bluetooth enabled me to bring up the local hotels and their phone numbers, dial with a quick touch so I could find out that they were all full. Technology saved me the time of wasting hours, yes hours, driving to hotels to check to see if they had any rooms, a couch in the lobby, a parking lot I could just park in.
I made it through several hours of unbelievable backups and finally found a little driving room up Rockville Pike. Power was out everywhere, but I noticed the lights were still on at a TGI Friday’s at the Pike Center (12147 Rockville Pike). As I reached the door, I saw a sign that read, “Because of the weather, we’re closing at 10pm.” The time: 10pm. The door was locked! Sigh…I had just made it through 5 1/2 hours of constant tension, near accidents, and a bit of anxiety - only to come up a couple of minutes short! Argghhh!
But one of the managers, Chris, let me in to use the bathroom and told me we’re sending our folks home fairly soon and we’re not cooking anything else. BUT, we’ve got some soup and coffee, and you’re welcome to come in for a quick bite.
YES! I savored that soup for 25 minutes, letting my stressed out head and muscles unwind from a nasty experience on the road. Wonderful. An oasis. I just sat and enjoyed.
There was no check. But I left a tip anyway and walked out of TGI Friday’s with a strong desire to come back with a crowd and run up a big check.
Some social media gurus would characterize Friday’s effort as being “remarkable.” It was. But was it a culture that the Friday’s manager picked up through the organization, or was it just the way Chris personally treated customers and handled people?
I don’t know. I just hope that Friday’s recognizes that it has some good people and pushes their extraordinary customer service under extraordinary conditions throughout all of Friday’s.
What Chris showed customers that night was human compassion. It’s an example of a social media building block at a very human level - before we called things social media. A small courtesy by Chris to one customer that really costs nothing, but has the potential to touch a lot of people, who will think about Friday’s in a whole new way. The social media part is how word of good deeds, good service gets spread.
Thanks Chris. You’ll see me soon.
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