Why Having A Positive Attitude Matters
One of the first things everyone learns in the service industry is that you’re always on stage. Regardless of where you work, customers are always watching and listening to you, and following your lead. Whether you’re having a great day or it’s one of the worst days of your life, you may still have to go to work, put on a happy face, and make your customers feel comfortable and taken care of. Setting our emotions aside is often difficult, but here are some things to keep in mind when trying to maintain a positive attitude:
A Positive Attitude Will Cover A Multitude Of Other Failings
Scenario 1: The food is out late. You’ve been super positive and friendly and have developed a good rapport with your customers. How irritated are they likely to be that things are taking a little longer than expected? Even if they are a little annoyed, how likely are they to take it out on you?
Scenario 2: The food is out late. You had to take the bus to work because you have an expensive car repair and you aren’t sure when you’ll be able to fix it. You are very understandably in a terrible mood and the last thing you feel like doing is being chipper for customers. You’ve served their drinks and gotten their food order in, but it’s unlikely anyone would describe you as friendly at the moment. How irritated are the customers likely to be that things are taking a little longer than expected?
Scenario 3: There was a misunderstanding about the order. You’ve been super friendly and have developed a good rapport with the table. How likely are they to be patient with you in correcting the issue?
Scenario 4: There was a misunderstanding about the order. You’re last customer was incredibly rude to you for no reason and you’re sick of trying, so you haven’t exactly been a ray of sunshine. How likely are your customers to be patient with you in correcting the issue?
In any scenario, if you’ve been positive, you’ll have some insurance if things go off the rails a bit. If you haven’t been positive, you aren’t likely to get any leeway.
You Can Dupe Customers Into Thinking You’re Doing A Great Job, Even If You’re Not
Even if you hate your job or your life on a particular day, you can get away with cutting a few above-and-beyond corners by acting like you’re happy to be there. You can provide service that’s factually mediocre, but do so with a big smile, and a lot of your customers are likely to still think you did an outstanding job. If you can muster a good attitude, even on a really bad day, you may be able to salvage all your tips.
It Will Make The Unavoidable, Uglier Parts Of Your Job A Little Less Ugly
Need to cut that guy off? If you’ve been positive and friendly all night, complying with the requirements of your BASSET card is likely to go much smoother. In fact, if you’ve been friendly with the table, you may find some allies in helping you get the message across to the problem customer.
On the other hand, if you’ve been aloof or on the rude side all night, having to cut someone off is not likely to go down so well. It’s never a pleasant task, and your negative attitude is likely to have spilled over onto your customers, making them have a negative attitude with you. Of course, regardless of how the night has gone or how it is received, as someone who is BASSET certified, you know a customer who has had too much will have to be cut off no matter what.
“Fake It Till You Make It” Actually Works
There’s scientific evidence to show it. . . for example, kids who have a positive attitude toward math actually do better at math, even when their natural skill level doesn’t change. There are lots of things you can’t change, like your math talent, or whatever is going on in your life that’s making you down in the dumps on any given day. But credible research shows that having a good attitude about your situation can do just as much to improve it as improving the situation itself can. That’s kind of amazing.
When you get your BASSET card from BASSET On The Fly, you’re getting trained by people who’ve been in your shoes. As a company run by seller-servers for seller-servers, we want you to be successful not just in staying BASSET certified, but in every way.
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