When fish & passion collide

In a world where expectations are few, passionate customer service arrives all guns blazing at the local fish & chip shop. 

Everyday I’m confronted by people who hate their job. The girl serving the coffee at the cafe or at the supermarket checkout. The guy down the hallway who’s been there for years and doesn’t know what else to do.

They might be civil enough to feel you received OK service and you go about your day because you’ve come to expect very little. You might even get ignored. Or you might be luckily enough to cop one of their venting sessions where you find out how bad their day has been and how customers are the root of all evil so you meekly apologise on behalf of all customers everywhere and shuffle out with your burnt coffee .

And then a stroke of magic happens in a place you don’t expect.

I walked into the local fish & chip shop and here’s how I expected it to go down:
Miserable girl asks me what I want. I tell her “a piece of fish and a crabstick” (no chips, I’m already exceeding my ‘diet’ allowance). She tells me how much, I pay, I wait, I get my order and go.

But that’s not what happened.

I had people serve me who were genuinely happy to be there. In a fish & chip shop. They were interested in my day, we chatted about non fish & chip related things, they almost apologise for having to wait 10 minutes, and after I was handed my order (that was being treated like a newborn), they OPEN THE DOOR FOR ME!

Remember where I am… in a fish & chip shop! Doors just don’t get opened for you. Never in McDonald’s or H&M,and almost certainly never the fish & chip shop.

Now, I’m not someone who usually needs doors opened, and I did feel guilty someone in a fish & chip shop was doing it… but she seemed genuinely happy to, so I wasn’t going to begrudge her the enjoyment of making my day. And I figured it was a one off.

Wrong again.

With service like that, I had to go back. And would you believe every time since has been the same? Sometimes someone different hands me my order, sometimes I get an explanation as to how they’ve lovingly wrapped my order in different layers, but every time I can see how much they love their job… and every time they open the door (except for once when the door was already open).

Best customer experience ever! If my waistline didn’t object, I’d be in every day!

If you ever make it to New Plymouth, Northstar Fish & Chip Shop. So good I’ve just blogged about it. The fish (and crabsticks) are amazing too!

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