Using Unreasonable Hospitality in Our Business

A couple of years ago I read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.  As a foodie, the story naturally enraptured me, as I love restaurants and their mysterious auras and focus on the customer experience.  The book, about Eleven Madison Park, which garnered three Michelin stars and became the preeminent restaurant in the world, described the business’s evolution into something beyond the meals they served.  As incredible as the food was, they had to emphasize the element of surprise in the customer journey.  Like a magician revealing their tricks, the book was a glimpse into the ways in which the staff delighted their guests by finding out about them and creating memorable moments.

Restaurants for me set the benchmark for experience, and they run the gambit.  You can have the sleek but utilitarian design of Chipotle, or the unrivaled dining experience at Corrida in Boulder, or simply wander into a chain restaurant whose target market is the undiscerning patron who just needs to fill their belly for an affordable price.  As a food snob, I usually save up my money to go out once every few months to an outstanding restaurant rather than go out weekly to Qdoba.  But, that’s just me. 

In bringing the Madison Park model to my stores, I’ve tried to inspire my staff (who likely will not read the book) to go above and beyond for our clients.  Afterall, you can walk into nearly any repair shop in Denver and have a similar experience, which means we all compete on the standard things: price, availability and quality of repair.   But nearly every shop you call will spell these things out for you: “We have the best price for the best quality and we can get you in as soon as Wednesday.”

This to me becomes monotonous and is hardly an inspiring growth opportunity in a field that really sets the bar quite low.  I encourage my staff to focus on the thing that I feel is absolutely paramount: relationships.  Anything else is just transactional.  The car repair experience is already painful.  No one, and I mean no one getting maintenance or repairs done is excited about coming in.   Not only that, but the poor reputation of the industry puts people on the defensive immediately.  We are already perceived as charlatans out to pull the wool over the eyes of the defenseless consumer. 

We do our best to change people's stereotypes of the industry and help them make a paradigm shift about what auto repair can look like and what it can feel like.  In our shop we use Slack to communicate and we have an Unreasonable Hospitality channel.  This is reserved exclusively for stories in which my staff did something special for one of our guests.   I’m excited to report that this has helped the entire company see and understand what our mission is: to make automotive repair less painful and to help the industry burnish its reputation.  I’ll be excited to share these stories in the posts to come!