Service standards (prt II): attitude

A situation
We were in the Hillary Step, a cracking bar in Whalley Range with great whiskies, superb beers, decent wines and a startling range of nuts. A proper drinking and chatting den in otherwords, with the odd snack thrown in. It's a good looking venue too with live music on Sunday evenings.

The Hillary Step is a neighbourhood bar that any neighbourhood would be proud of. The management clearly care about what they deliver and the service from most of the staff reflects this.

But there's a problem.

A male member of staff is an object lesson in how not to serve people.

He's not so much rude as couldn't give a flying fuck.

He never smiles, he never tries to engage in chat and he never learns his products. Indeed he seems to think that all this bar work is so far beneath him you'd need the Hubble Telescope to see it.

He has that attitude that seems to say one day he'll be such a success that all the down-trodden little shits that he serves will think it a privilege to have been cold-shouldered by him.

This week a friend, Simon, asked what was the hoppiest ale and what the various strengths of the ales were as he didn't want one that was too strong. Mr Couldn't-care-less ignored the first question and told my friend to read the pump clip if he wanted to know what the strengths were.

My friend then asked about the range of nuts in the cabinet (he's got a freaky thing going on with nuts) and what combinations you get them in. “It's written on the notice here, you can read it there,” the man said when he could just as well have told Simon what was available and, as good staff do, encourage him to buy the more expensive deluxe selection and thus help the business prosper.

When he cleaned up the empty glasses off the table, our man reached over my head without saying excuse me and removed a glass with almost a centimetre of beer in. He almost barged another drinker out of the way to get the glasses.

The moral of the story
Whatever the quality of the products, places surely need to identify poor service immediately. The Hillary Step is a great little business but it is compromised by bad service. The boss should have a word with our man, employ some complex wire and peg system to make him smile, advise him to learn his products, tell him to talk to people if they talk to him and be polite when collecting glasses. Above all they need to ask him if he's in the right job: whether working in a cemetery where the customers don't talk back might suit. Neighbourhood bars need to be a bit like Cheers Bar, they need to show their love of the customers not their scorn. The Hillary Step is a cracking place suffering from a curable and localised rudeness.

Click here fore the first service standards article The Hillary Step is at 199 Upper Chorlton Rd, Whalley Range, M16 0BH.