When it comes to the evaluation of services, we consider how the service is perceived by the user, and not how it is. This means that we do not measure only KPI’s (such as speed of service, plates served, time to order etc) but less subjective measures such as how gentle the server was, or how fast (as compared to what?) the service was.

Last week I visited the central office, thus I wanted to treat my colleagues with some local pastries from my hometown. Before hoping on the car, and while having my bags in hand, I visited one local pastries shop which is famous for a certain treat. I noticed however that only one guy was working and that there was a small crowd waiting to give their order. I was very annoyed that I had to wait, so I decided to leave immediately, and go to my car to leave my stuff. While walking to the car, I was cursing the management, the owner, the city citizens with their lazy attitude and all that I saw wrong all these years there. After I left my stuff in the car, I returned to the pastry shop, this time relaxed, and without having to carry all that heavy stuff. There was nobody waiting in line, the employee was very gentle, and he served my large order (pastry prepared on site). He then gave me some advice about keeping it fresh until I went to the central office the next day. I left the shop satisfied, and disappointed that I had reacted very badly in the first place.

Conclusion

The perception of the service is not only result of our prior experiences, our expectations, our desires… it is also a result of our mood, and we should filter somehow the extreme reviews or we should try to evaluate them under a different prespective.