Meal Experience

Understanding Behavioural science helps in managing service encounters better. A recent visit to a first class restaurant had us waiting at a vacant but uncleared table for almost 10 minutes. The wait wasn't the most pleasant one. As we waited for someone to clear the dirty dishes from an earlier meal, we found the the service personnel's 'don't care' attitude disturbing. Not wanting to walk out, we waited patiently. The meal that followed, though was a good one wasn't truly enjoyed due to the earlier unpleasant incident. Needless to say we are not going back there again.

According to behavioural scientists, when people recall an experience, they don't remember every single moment of it (unless the experience was short and traumatic). Instead they recall a few significant moments vividly and gloss over others - they remember snapshots, not movies. And they carry away an overall assessment of the experience that's based on three factors: the trend in the sequence of pleasure and pain, the high and the low points and the ending.

Our evaluation of the complete meal experience was based on that one disappointing experience of being ignored by service people while waiting patently for the table to be cleared. That resulted in us not enjoying the meal, and vowing never to go back.

Ref : 'Want to perfect your company's service? Use Behavioural science' - R B Chase & S Dasu

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