I love good customer service. Small towns are more likely to offer good service because your business means more to them, but some cities rival places like Portland, Maine, Greenville, SC, and Chattanooga, TN, when it comes to customer service. I especially like being in cities where the people behind the counter or the person taking your order doesn't make you feel like you have to pay a premium to get good service (that's you New England). This is yet another reason why I love Austin so much more than D.C. and almost any other major city I've been to.
Don't get me wrong, service industry people in Austin are sometimes too cool for school; trust me, a lot of them are my friends. And there is a service industry culture here that breeds lifetime waiters and bartenders that sometimes get jaded with the whole process, but for the most part Austin is a case study on customer service. Even Time Warner Cable is good on the phone.
That said, I wanted to help you by explaining why and how I figured out Austin is one of, if not, the best customer service cities in America. I used the 50 cities listed here (by population) and excluded Denver, Colorado Springs and Honolulu because either I haven't been or I don't have enough anecdotes from friends and family to have a take.
Also, I must point out that customer service, like a good meal, can be bought at a certain price so while every major city has restaurants and bars that offer great service to high rollers (dinner > $30 or bar tab > $50) I stuck to the low budget scene...lunch for under $12, dinner for under $20 and drinks under $7 each. Here goes...try not to be too offended.
1. Is it on anyone's list of top 10 places to visit (read: does customer service even matter)? Thanks for showing up: Arlington, TX, Oakland, Tuscon, AZ, Mesa, AZ, Tulsa, OK, Omaha, Fort Worth, El Paso, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Columbus, OH.
2. Does the city have a food/bar/live music scene that warrants attention (read: customer service starts with good value)? Sorry Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Long Beach, Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Sacramento, Cincinnati.
3. Are people generally friendly? This question rules out Boston, Detroit, anywhere in New Jersey, Cleveland.
4. Does your waiter/door guy/bartender/store clerk/cashier make the extra effort to satisfy you? Out
goes Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
5. Do you leave the bar/restaurant/store feeling special? Please remove Baltimore, Houston and Dallas.
6. Will you have to wait more than one minute longer than you feel you should to get a table/menu/drink/attention? Out goes New York, Miami and Atlanta.
7. Did the valet guy/bartender/etc. give you the evil eye for not tipping enough? Down goes Chicago, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
8. Does the city have an airport you'd actually want to fly into? Please take a step back Louisville, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach and Memphis.
9. Are most of the bars/restaurants/venues clean? No offense New Orleans.
10. Is there diversity reflected in both staff and customer base? Eh, Nashville (history catches up here), Kansas City (the BBQ made it this far), and Portland (way too cool for school from what I'm told) have to go.
The cities still on the list: Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Austin, Raleigh.
And here's the bonus question:
11. Where would people in the service industry least like to work? Raleigh, St. Louis.
So that leaves Austin, Minneapolis and Seattle as the best cities for customer service.
Don't get me wrong, service industry people in Austin are sometimes too cool for school; trust me, a lot of them are my friends. And there is a service industry culture here that breeds lifetime waiters and bartenders that sometimes get jaded with the whole process, but for the most part Austin is a case study on customer service. Even Time Warner Cable is good on the phone.
That said, I wanted to help you by explaining why and how I figured out Austin is one of, if not, the best customer service cities in America. I used the 50 cities listed here (by population) and excluded Denver, Colorado Springs and Honolulu because either I haven't been or I don't have enough anecdotes from friends and family to have a take.
Also, I must point out that customer service, like a good meal, can be bought at a certain price so while every major city has restaurants and bars that offer great service to high rollers (dinner > $30 or bar tab > $50) I stuck to the low budget scene...lunch for under $12, dinner for under $20 and drinks under $7 each. Here goes...try not to be too offended.
1. Is it on anyone's list of top 10 places to visit (read: does customer service even matter)? Thanks for showing up: Arlington, TX, Oakland, Tuscon, AZ, Mesa, AZ, Tulsa, OK, Omaha, Fort Worth, El Paso, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Columbus, OH.
2. Does the city have a food/bar/live music scene that warrants attention (read: customer service starts with good value)? Sorry Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Long Beach, Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Sacramento, Cincinnati.
3. Are people generally friendly? This question rules out Boston, Detroit, anywhere in New Jersey, Cleveland.
4. Does your waiter/door guy/bartender/store clerk/cashier make the extra effort to satisfy you? Out
goes Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
5. Do you leave the bar/restaurant/store feeling special? Please remove Baltimore, Houston and Dallas.
6. Will you have to wait more than one minute longer than you feel you should to get a table/menu/drink/attention? Out goes New York, Miami and Atlanta.
7. Did the valet guy/bartender/etc. give you the evil eye for not tipping enough? Down goes Chicago, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
8. Does the city have an airport you'd actually want to fly into? Please take a step back Louisville, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach and Memphis.
9. Are most of the bars/restaurants/venues clean? No offense New Orleans.
10. Is there diversity reflected in both staff and customer base? Eh, Nashville (history catches up here), Kansas City (the BBQ made it this far), and Portland (way too cool for school from what I'm told) have to go.
The cities still on the list: Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Austin, Raleigh.
And here's the bonus question:
11. Where would people in the service industry least like to work? Raleigh, St. Louis.
So that leaves Austin, Minneapolis and Seattle as the best cities for customer service.
Oh cool! Way to go for figuring out which cities have the best customer service. I say that's a cool way of studying it. Hmm, is it because of one city's trends or culture? Come to think of it, regardless of where we are, businesses shouldn't forget that the customers are the heart of the business. Maybe one of these days, you'd have an insight about Honolulu.
Posted by: Sonia Roody | May 27, 2011 at 07:57 AM
Minneapolis!!! "Nice" gets you farther than you might think...
Posted by: Althea Marie | July 15, 2009 at 11:44 AM