“At Gazelle Sports we…strive for retail excellence by providing the world’s best customer care” -Gazelle Sports’ mission statement

In a blog post a couple of weeks ago, I commented that one of our favorite places to visit for a vacation is the city of Chicago. Being “small town folks” as we are, we enjoy the excitement and relative anonymity of the big city from time to time. It had been a few months since we’d visited, so this weekend seemed like a great time to spend two days amidst the many cultures the country’s third largest city has to offer. (It doesn’t hurt that my favorite race from last year was taking place, and I was intent on beating last year’s time)

Because the “world’s best customer care” is something I strive to provide, it is something that is often on my mind, even outside of work. We shopped at a number of department stores downtown that provided us just the amount of customer care you would expect from such a store; that is to say, not much. But I’m not writing to rail against the “status quo” of national retail chains. Over the weekend, I witnessed what is quite possibly the best customer care I have ever seen (outside of Gazelle Sports, of course).

I was really happy with the way the race went last year, so I did my best to repeat my pre-race routine from last year. After checking into our hotel, we walked about a mile to packet pickup and then back again to drop off my race bag. Then, it was time for dinner. Last year, we just so happened to find an amazing restaurant, Italian Village. The people are great, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the food is phenomenal. Of course, we had to go back.

This year, we were seated in a small room just off the main seating area and the kitchen with about 8 other people. As the server was going around, taking orders for dinner, I couldn’t help but overhear the woman behind me ordering. She placed her order, including a salad minus onions. (at this point in the story, I feel like I’m not going to do it justice)  A few minutes later, the server came back and asked her if she was allergic to onions. She responded by saying “yes.” He informed her that the sauce on the main dish she ordered was made with onions and offered a number of options for her. After some back and forth questioning, she ultimately revealed that onions simply upset her stomach, and that the amount in the sauce would be fine. The server inquired if she was sure that was okay, and she assured him it would be fine.

If the interaction were to end here, I would have been impressed that the server was able to make the connection that onions were used in the making of the sauce and that she had just asked not to have onions on her salad. But alas, there is more to the story.

Less than 5 minutes later, the cook who was preparing her meal came out to the table to speak with the woman. He wanted to be absolutely sure that his meal would not cause any negative reaction to any customer. Again, she assured him that she would be fine and preferred to have the course prepared as normal. The cook apologized for the confusion, and made her meal as he normally would. I leaned over the table and said to my wife, “now THAT’S world’s best customer care.” Most servers would never take the time to make the connection he did. Most servers would never make the myriad of alternative suggestions that he made. And most cooks would NEVER leave the kitchen to be sure his meal is being prepared in a way that will not make a patron sick. Most restaurants are content to wait it out and see if the customer is willing to complain. But not at Italian Village, they put the customer first.