Clone zone

Richard Fox pleads for more individuality in a corporate-speak world

Maybe I should stay at home more often - but after 20 years in this industry, and more recently, in my role as catering commentator, I've noticed I may be getting a little over-sensitive to nuances and styles of service.

From an out-of-place shirt-crease to a torn and trailing trouser hem, I can feel the red mist descending like some kind of road rage, threatening to turn what should be a pleasant sojourn into potential incarceration. I have to admit that I strive to keep myself in check, lest friends think I've gone mad.

So it's no surprise that during a recent visit to a local bar, it didn't pass me by that I was asked three times if everything was okay with my meal before I'd munched half-way through the first course. For someone who starts to feel worked-up if eye-contact isn't made on exchange of thanks, such an extreme is enough to induce paranoia, accompanied by frequent over-the-shoulder checks for Russian hit-squads sprinkling phials of radioactive substance on unsuspecting diners' plates.

And this over-the-top service didn't start and end with a plethora of enquiries - oh no. Coffees arrived with verbose requests to enjoy them, and condiments were delivered with commentaries regarding relevance and function as accompaniments to our food - as if we couldn't work that one out for ourselves.

The meals themselves were not placed in front of anyone until an acknowledgement was received that the food belonged to that person. This may seem reasonable - but as there were only two of us, the process of elimination really should have kicked in without waiting for the second hungry diner's confirmation.

Had I been dining solo, absently gazing around the room, as if open to welcoming any stranger to my table to relieve my loneliness, the intensity and frequency of the waiter's attentions may have felt like pleasant interaction. However, given that I was obviously engaged in a rather intense business discussion, the constant stream of interruption was clearly inappropriate.

I strongly suspect that had one of us been in the midst of a marriage proposal on bended knee, we would have been interrupted to check whether everything was going OK.

This may sound as if I'm having a slightly unfair dig at some poor sap who was clearly trying very hard - albeit too hard - to do his job efficiently. Certainly, his manner was well-meaning - and I should be jolly thankful that our plates weren't unceremoniously dumped and our needs constantly ignored.

But I'm not shooting the messenger here, as much as the organisation that sent him. While there is a need in all organisations to provide guidance and procedures relating to effective customer communication, surely the emphasis should be on individual needs rather than pushing a one-size-fits-all type of policy.

The waiter had clearly been subjected to a kind of corporate brain-washing to ensure consistency of service. The food and drink offering - even the décor - may imply cutting-edge, free-thinking independence, but the service was steeped in US-style fast-food jargon.

From where I'm sitting, this is just lazy recruitment, disguised as customer service. Issuing head-office-based procedures for direct customer contact simply negates the value of customer-service training by individual managers. While this may appear to be a positive from a time-efficiency perspective,

it ultimately de-skills the role of unit manager - which obviously allows for the employment of younger, less experienced and of course, lower-paid managers.

Perhaps it's the conspiracy theorist at work in me again, and maybe I should stay in a little more often or allow over-service to wash over me with good grace and thanks.

But I can't help thinking that if managers were not only given freedom to recruit based on flair, perceptiveness and individual personality - and positively encouraged to do so - we may begin to find our individual customer needs catered for with finesse and understanding, and discover a welcome individuality to offset what is rapidly becoming a brave-new-world vision of service-staff clones.