“It is OK to not know. It is just not OK to not find out.”

For the last 20 years, I have taught students in my customer service training classes, “I don’t know is half a sentence.” It is a basic premise for a concierge, and many different businesses have adopted the idea, “It is OK to not know, it is just not OK to not find out.” It is kind of a paradox. Being comfortable with the unknown, the not knowing what will happen next and living in the mystery is a success factor in life, but being comfortable with the “I don’t know” as a complete sentence is a disaster when delivering a customer experience.

The other day, I was literally taken aback when I asked a server at a restaurant in Arkansas where the crab was from. She replied in a voice as sweet as syrup, “Well Ma’am, I don’t rightly know.” She was completely comfortable with her answer. It never even occurred to her to ask the chef. There was simply no curiosity and no understanding that her answer was half a sentence. Truth be told, I often recommend hiring Southerners for their inherent hospitality. In this case, the server could have benefited from some skills training.

During the same visit, I called the concierge at The Peabody in Little Rock and asked him if he knew a place to swim because the hotel had no pool. He had been a concierge for ten months, had zero training and had never had the question before. He said he would get back to me in a few minutes. Literally four minutes later he called my room. Instead of giving me the name of a public pool, he told me he would drive me in the hotel van to a nearby hotel where he had spoken to the General Manager and secured me free access to their pool. He drove me there, made sure I found my way to the pool and offered to pick me up when I was finished. I gave him my new book “The Art and Science of the Hotel Concierge” as a gift and sincerely thanked him for the “concierge thinking” that he expressed.

So what is it that makes one person comfortable with just saying “I don’t know” while another gets creative, goes the extra mile and actually cares? These questions are some of the key reasons I have developed my Spirit In Service training program. It shows managers and employees the value of curiosity, questioning and listening. As a matter of fact, I have combined the three and trademarked what I call “curiosening” as the key to success.

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