What is good customer service? It’s the question on most people’s minds, especially those who work in any industry that services clients or guests. It seems obvious: ask anyone and they can likely recount an anecdote or experience to you of a moment where they received good customer service. Even still, creating a culture of good customer service is easier said than done. For business owners, creating an environment where good customer service is the minimum expectation is always the goal, but it can feel unclear how to actually go about doing it. This is troublesome as delivering good customer service is essential in retaining customers and creating a successful business.
At Payday HCM, we are very familiar with this situation. We have plenty of clients asking us questions regarding customer service—how you deliver good customer service, the kinds of things that make up good customer service. As a service-based business ourselves, we’re also asking ourselves these questions. Looking around, there are plenty of resources available that claim to hold the secret to delivering outstanding customer service, but which one offers the true method for providing good customer service? For us here at Payday HCM, the answer lies in “Unreasonable Hospitality.”
In this article, we’ll be going over Payday HCM’s journey with “Unreasonable Hospitality” and how we’re using the lessons contained within this book to provide our clients with service so good, it borders on unreasonable. This article is the first in a series of videos and articles discussing Payday and “Unreasonable Hospitality,” with this article focused on discussing what unreasonable hospitality is, Payday’s relation to it, and the overall goal of this series (with some history of customer service sprinkled in there for good measure).
In this article, you will learn:
- Payday HCM, ‘Unreasonable Hospitality,’ and the History of Customer Service
- How is Unreasonable Hospitality Different from Customer Service?
- The End-Goal: The Purpose of Payday’s ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ Journey
Payday HCM, ‘Unreasonable Hospitality,’ and the History of Customer Service
To begin, we’ll go over the origins of Payday’s relationship with “Unreasonable Hospitality” as well as the origins of customer service.
Will Guidara and the Art of ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’
So, what exactly is unreasonable hospitality? Well, it’s a concept that originated from restaurateur Will Guidara’s 2022 book “Unreasonable Hospitality.” The book describes strategies that service-based organizations can take to become, well, “unreasonably hospitable.”
At Payday HCM, our clients are everything. So, naturally, when our founder and CEO, Andy Siegel, read Guidara’s “Unreasonable Hospitality,” he knew this was something Payday would have to incorporate into our service. Recently, Payday’s Learning and Development Manager, Stephanie Landrum, attended an Unreasonable Hospitality Summit to learn more about unreasonable hospitality from Guidara himself.
“I went to go learn about all of the different things we could do to embrace and incorporate into our culture to provide our clients with the best service possible [and] giving clients more than they expect,” Landrum said.
Hospitality vs. Customer Service: The Origins of Customer Service
At this point, you may be wondering, “What makes hospitality any different from customer service? When you say ‘unreasonable hospitality,’ are you just talking about delivering good customer service?” It’s a good question, one that can be answered by looking at the history of customer service and hospitality.
Generally, there isn’t necessarily an isolated history of customer service. It’s something that’s developed over the course of history, and as people interact with each other in a business setting. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 1922 that the term customer service would properly appear in writing, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, citing its appearance in the Washington Post.
Ironically, one of the earliest indications of “customer service” comes in the form of an example of bad customer service: an ancient Babylonian tablet dating back to 1750 BC where a person named person named Nanni is complaining to a copper ore supplier named Ea-nasir for presumably denying them a refund after Nanni repeatedly sent servants to exchange the purchased copper ore, which seemingly wasn’t what it was advertised to be.
How is Unreasonable Hospitality Different from Customer Service?
With some background on unreasonable hospitality and customer service under our belt, we can look a bit deeper at how the two concepts differ from one another.
Hot Dogs and Hospitality: Being Unreasonable In Your Hospitality
Unreasonable hospitality is a relatively broad concept (the book is 288 pages after all). For Landrum, one of the things that best encapsulates what unreasonable hospitality is, though, is an anecdote Guidara shares in the book regarding a conversation he overheard between two guests at his New York City restaurant, Eleven Madison Park.
“He overheard some of his patrons talking about how the only thing they regret is not getting a New York hot dog. So, [Guidara] went down the street, he bought a two-dollar hot dog, convinced his chef to put it on a plate… and out of every single thing they ate that day, the thing they remember is that hot dog,” Landrum said.
Landrum explained that unreasonable hospitality is centered around being present and listening for moments where you can go above and beyond to meet your clients’ needs. This doesn’t involve a large amount of money, either. For Landrum, it’s more about listening to your clients' needs and providing service that is thoughtful and helps them feel seen.
“What draws me to unreasonable hospitality is I’m naturally that giver. I’m naturally that person who tries to go out of my way, so, ultimately, I just want all of our clients to feel like they’ve been invited into our home,” Landrum said.
Hospitality vs. Customer Service: A Historical Record of Hospitality
The idea of hospitality feeling like an invitation into one’s home has historical precedent. Unlike customer service, hospitality has a much clearer history, one rooted in tradition and compassion for others while also offering a clearer picture of what it is and how it’s evolved. The word hospitality, after all, derives from the Latin word “hospitalitas,” which means “friendliness to guests.”
In the Greek tradition, “xenia,” or “guest-friendship,” describes the ancient traditions used to express hospitality. The Greeks took (and still take) hospitality very seriously: they saw “xenia” as a moral obligation as much as a social one, with hosts generally being required to offer guests a bath, food, drink, gifts, and safe passage—no questions asked.
Other ancient cultures, including those in India and Nepal, also held hospitality as one of their core tenets. The expansion of trade leading into the Middle Ages would help usher in the creation of inns along popular trade routes, expanding the tradition of hospitality.
With continued evolution throughout the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution, the early 1900s would help to usher in the age of luxury hotels like the Ritz or Waldorf Astoria, laying the foundation for the modern image of hospitality and how it relates specifically to the aptly named hospitality industry.
The End-Goal: The Purpose of Payday’s ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ Journey
Now that we understand what unreasonable hospitality is and how it differs from customer service, we’ll look at how we here at Payday are incorporating lessons from “Unreasonable Hospitality” into our day-to-day interactions.
Adopting a Culture of Unreasonable Hospitality
It’s one thing to read about some extraordinary good deed or a shining example of good customer service—it’s another to actually take what you learn from these stories and incorporate them into your company. That’s exactly what Payday and Landrum are hoping to do with “Unreasonable Hospitality.”
“My goal is to relay all of the information that I’ve learned along with reading the book with each and every member of the Payday team [so] we can start embracing and incorporating [unreasonable hospitality] into our culture,” Landrum said.
Hospitality vs. Customer Service: How History Teaches Us to be Unreasonably Hospitable
As we can see, our historical record of hospitality is one that dates back all the way to the ancient Greeks and Romans, spanning numerous historical periods until we arrive at where we are today. Customer service, while theoretically existing alongside hospitality throughout this history, doesn’t have the same roots in tradition and culture.
So, what’s the difference between hospitality and customer service? Well, whereas customer service is something whose origins can generally be traced back to an ancient customer complaint and gives us a broad portrait of how to offer service to others, hospitality, both culturally and conceptually, contains a storied history of providing guests with anything they might need and more, welcoming them into your home (or business), and treating them with respect and care.
Take the Leap of Hospitality With Payday HCM
It’s not hard to go online and find multiple books, articles, videos, podcasts, and other forms of content talking about how you can deliver good customer service. In fact, likely, we all generally have a good idea of what good customer service is. So, then, why is good customer service so hard to find? Or, for that matter, why is adopting a culture of good customer service within a company or organization so difficult? Well, as we’ve read throughout this article, customer service isn’t something that’s rooted in culture. Hospitality, however, is, and with the lessons provided in “Unreasonable Hospitality,” Payday is looking to take our service to the next level.
Be sure to check out the next installments of our “Unreasonable Hospitality” series on our YouTube channel. Also, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any future payroll, HR, and benefits-related content. Make sure to check out our payroll, HR, and benefits administration services as well to learn more about how Payday’s commitment to unreasonable hospitality can help transform the way your business does business.
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