Say, you’re a waiterss in a cafe and you’re taking an order of hot water to a table. You accidentally spill hot water on the table cloth in front of your customer. It’s not chatastorphic but enough to make the table cloth damp just where your client might place her elbow. Wouldn’t you quickly apologize, put down your tray on a near by table and hurry to change the damp table cloth? You most certainly would not first hand the receipt of 1€ for the hot water to your customer, then ask if she’d like you to change the table cloth. Then ponder over the whether or not it is necessary to change the table cloth and eventually expect the client to lift up her cup, the sugar bowl and the tea tray. However this is exactly how it was done at Cafe Engel in Helsinki on Sept. 12. 2008
The moral of the story is that accidents happen. It’s how you recover from them that matters.
Imagine how the customer would have felt if everything would have been dealt with quickly and efficiently and she would have never had to see the bill?
