Last week I was going in Uber. The first question was which Location. I told him the location. The next comment from him surprised me. He said ,”Let me figure out the roads which are going to give us objections !”
He dropped me 10minutes before time for meeting. While I was getting down , he told me , “Can you give me 5 stars“. I said , I am running for a meeting which will start in 10 mins and I will give you anyway. Do not worry. He did persuade me couple of times, But I said I will do it. I was impressed with him and in my mind I had made up to give him 5 stars. It was only a question of “when” I will do it before I forget. In the next 5 hours I forgot to check my phone. I was busy meeting people and socalizing. It never occurred to my mind to give him those high ratings. I acknowledged one thing. The moments are fleeting as we live in a highly intrusive world and we forget to care about that person who had done a good job. So I forgot to give that five star. I felt later that I should have praised and given the rating at that instant.
A few weeks back , we went through a tough time to get a piece of furniture delivered at our house. My wife and I would have made several calls to figure out the details of the delivery. After lot of hustles and challenges we got the delivery done. The delivery person was not ready to get the package to our house and even I threatened that I will cancel the order. The experience was bitter. The next day the company executive sitting in a distant location asked us to “give a 5 star rating!” His argument was that the product was good, delivery is not his responsibility. My wife explained to the company executive that, we are the end customer and need not know all the intricacies in the delivery. I wish the company executive asked us a better question like the lady in the Decathalon counter. She asked after our shopping this questions , “Did you face any inconveniences while you shopped with us?”
So coming back to Sunday, I was sitting in a restaurant and ordered my favourite Camomile tea. I knew the guy and he was kind enough to get the tea on time and took much care in ordering my favourite egg omlette sandwich. It was also delivered very fast. The best part is their billing system, no waiting and yes I gave him a 5 star without asking for it. That time, I recollected our Uber person. I took out my phone and gave him a 5 star too after all he did a good job.
That made me think of people who ask for 5 stars and set of people who do not ask for 5 stars and yet we want to give them 5 stars. I know in my life at this point in time couple of people who treat me very differently and even though they do not ask for 5 star rating.
One is my favourite cab driver Raghu who takes great care in understanding the moods of the day and decides to get my luggage near to the lift. Also he will keep his eyes and ears open and see in any way if he can help us. He had helped and rendered support when it came to changing driving license for my wife, repairing our car, getting medicines and finally even to the extent last week of asking me any help to locate a gas mechanic as we had a problem with a gas leakage. Next person is Preetam from Bookworm. One of the best moment he presented was when he gave a book as a compliment to my wife on our anniversary. I asked him why did you do that”. He told me, “I was observing that Madam was having that book and going through that book several times and since she saw all of you including kids bought lot of books, she decided to let it go. Also I had asked about that author and she knew lot about his works and so we decided to give her a gift.”
People like Pritam and Raghu take “micro” care in their service. Seth Godin mentions in one of his interviews how a restaurant guy needs to build new skills to give a different dining experience and that gives him a different meaning on the job. It is the difference between “working for the job” and “working on the job”. The Uber driver gave me a good experience and he was working for the job. Through more ratings he will get more rides and he was doing well on his job with his ratings. I am sure you will come across so many people who are in this category. They are fully focussed on results and results only. Regu and Pritam over a period of time have built a relationship with me and gave good experience that made a big difference. That was mainly as they were ofcourse good in their job and were repeatedly getting referred and were my key choices when it comes to request for driver and request for book collections . They both built a humane experience on top of their job skills and that goes beyond their job.
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