Keep the Promise – Part Two

The words occupy one whole wall in the Canlis wine cellar:

Keep the Promise

Besides a great deal of rare and very expensive wine, what’s behind those words? Canlis is an iconic, world class fine dining legend in Seattle, Washington, delivering impeccably choreographed, unforgettable food and service experiences to its guests. It might be about one of the last places we think to look for customer service insights.  Winner of the James Beard Award, guests on Top Chef, recognized by Gourmet Magazine as one of America’s top 20 restaurants, Zagat-rated, Canlis has been recognized countless times over its 64 year run for providing remarkable, memory-making—and pricey–dining experiences for its guests.

In Part One of this article, we wrestled with a fundamental customer service question. To what extent have our customers and attenders become a commodity to us? Has a mindset crept in that people and relationships are, like commodities, replaceable?

Our collective scorecard isn’t impressive, according to Accenture’s latest Global Consumer Pulse Survey:

“Despite having more data and insights into consumer desires and preferences, companies in the U.S. have failed to meaningfully improve customer satisfaction or reverse rising switching rates among their customers.”

Something is flawed in the implied promise we make when we commit to serve people.

When we get that inner sense that our customer service efforts are lacking, we often go to fixes and tactics—when a pause for deeper reflection might serve us better.

So that brings us back to Canlis and this idea of promise making and keeping.

An evening at Canlis is about experiencing an enterprise that has radically resisted commoditizing its relationships. They have cracked the code not just in serving winsome, contemporary Pacific Northwest cuisine, but also sustaining incredibly high levels of customer service.

Walk around Canlis and you soon sense a level of peace and order among the staff, as if everyone is following a rhythm only they can hear.

Surely, we think, a tabloid-style expose’ would reveal this to be an organization ruthless about all the current customer service fads: obsessing over every touchpoint with guests, plotting and replotting the customer service experience from end to end, demanding zero defects, a one and done stance with staff screw-ups.

Actually what distinguishes Canlis is none of these things. It is something different. Deeper. More revolutionary. And more easily missed.

As I got to know owners Chris and Alice Canlis, I saw they were actively responding to an invitation that came their way:

“Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” –Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

Their goal was to develop an unforced rhythm of putting others first like Jesus taught. Their empathetic care and feeding of staff and customer relationships became the goal.

“Early on we determined to live out a Proverb from the Bible, Chris said. ‘Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.’ (Proverbs 3:27). He added, “For us generosity is not a decision; it’s a function of character.”

The headwaters of Canlis’s commitment to deliver impeccable fine dining and rich customer service can be found here—not in chasing fads but in a decision to live an unforced rhythm of serving people generously.

The reins of Canlis leadership now are squarely in the hands of Chris and Alice’s sons, Mark and Brian.

“Our goal remains the same as that of our parents and grandparents–to understand what matters to you, when you come to Canlis,” Mark Canlis says.

So a new generation of younger leaders must surely be focused almost exclusively on customer relationships in a new era, right? Wrong.

Mark Canlis shares,

“In the restaurant business almost everyone starts with the customer or say they do when the conversation turns to customer service. But in my experience, many restaurants are self-serving. I, the owner, am going to take care of me first. Then comes the customer.

At Canlis we see it a bit differently. Our mission is:

To live out and grow the belief that it’s worth putting other people first.

Actually, we have bet the farm on one very counter-intuitive idea in the expression of our mission. We are going to exercise emotionally intelligent leadership by taking care of our staff, in front of taking care of our business. Our goal is to make sure all 95 employees are living out the values of this business. And we have lots of temptations to break that promise to them. But staying true to it seems to have such a positive impact on our business (let alone the lives of the people we work with) that those temptations have slowly been exposed as hollow, devoid of any real value. Saltless.”

Mark is making us think here that keeping the promise to a guest without first keeping it with our staff, is hypocritical.

“If we focus on winning awards for the edginess of our menu, or the accolades of guests or profit—all of which are wonderful—we lose. But IF we focus on staff well-being, there is plenty of money to make and guests to please and joy to have…If I can strongly influence my staff and change and affect who they are, this lasts long after the awards and the money.”

Mark goes on,

“If we use staff, then the staff will turn around and use the guest. It becomes transactional. Relationships aren’t built on transactions. Too often fine dining can be like prostitution—the corrupted use of one’s talent for personal or financial gain. ‘I’m an actor. I do this for a paycheck. I give you what you want. You pay me. But emotionally I am not present.’ At Canlis, we aren’t interested in pimping people out. Imagine if every employee knew that the employer’s number one job was to take care of that employee. When people know the boss has their back it gives them the space to focus on guests.”

Younger brother Brian Canlis says,

“We hire very carefully. When we interview, we ask people, ‘How will working at Canlis help you become who you hope to become?’ We don’t hire blank stare people. Who they are becoming and how they are doing in the context of working at Canlis is an essential component of effective customer service. The people we hire aren’t the ones you’d expect. We are hiring for character–for people who get excited about caring for other people. We can train technique and the Canlis way of doing things. We make mistakes and may hire a bad apple. But when they screw up, we take people back to our first meeting: ‘This is who we are and who we are trying to become. Can you become who you want to be here?’ We want people who want to change.”

Not surprisingly then, Canlis guests are the ones who benefit from this counter-intuitive approach of leaders serving and investing in staff.

“The last thing we do in our inspirational meeting before opening is say to each other in one voice, ‘Keep the promise’.”

Brian goes on,

“Keeping the promise is insuring guests come first with what is fragile and precious to them on that particular evening. How dare we put ourselves in the spotlight when what is important for our guests is what is on their minds and hearts when they come.”

“We took a call one day from a daughter. ‘Our mom is dying of cancer and she has made the decision to end her treatments. My five sisters and mom want to eat together one last time and do that at Canlis. Can you help us?’ They are really asking, ‘Is it safe here? They come in fragile or a bit anxious or full of hope for the evening ahead. And they hold it out to us and say, ‘Can you take care of this important thing for us?’”

It seems putting others first is neither a rule nor a strategy at Canlis. It’s a rhythm. An unforced rhythm—the kind Jesus invites all of us to. A way the Canlis team moves through each day right up to when they turn out the lights and go home.

Yes, the right stemware matters at Canlis, and profit and parking and food presentation, their new 20–something head chef from New York with his magical menu ideas and a thousand other details. But it all sits on a bedrock of putting others first by serving and investing in them—first staff, then customers.

We aren’t moving the needle much when it comes to delivering better and better customer service. Let’s try something different.

Imagine if each of us who lead people were to carve out this next season as one where we work to develop a promise of serving and putting our staffs and volunteers first, in pursuit of service to our customers or attenders.

As leaders, we too have the privilege of responding to the same invitation from Jesus the Canlis organization already has—“Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythm of grace.” But if our starting point is pursuing customer service tactics, we will likely miss out on the joy and the results that come with investing in and serving our staffs first.

(For a deeper dive into the Canlis way, you might enjoy this or this and this.)