A customer's complaint about our coffee machine taught me to shut up and listen

I was working the morning shift at the cafe in the downtown library, and this regular, Mr. Henderson, came in looking mad. He pointed at our big espresso machine and said, 'Your steam wand is making a weird hissing sound, like it's got a leak.' I almost brushed him off, thinking I knew the machine better, and told him it was just the normal purge cycle. He got real quiet and said, 'I was a maintenance engineer for thirty years. That's a failing gasket.' I shut my mouth, called our repair guy, and sure enough, a tiny seal inside the steam valve was shot. It would have blown completely during the lunch rush. Now when a customer says something's wrong, even if I think I know better, I stop and really hear them out first. Has a customer ever pointed out a problem you totally missed?

3 comments

3 Comments

faithwalker1mo ago

Big question is how many other times did you brush off a customer before this happened? Not trying to be harsh, but that engineer probably saved your whole lunch shift. I've had to learn the same lesson running my crew on job sites - the new guy on the cleanup crew spotted a leaky pipe fitting that my foreman swore was fine. Turned out he was right and we dodged a flood. What's your plan now to make sure you don't slide back into the old habit of tuning people out?

king.stella1mo ago

My buddy runs a food truck downtown. He had this older guy come up one day and say his generator was smoking a little blue. He almost laughed it off because he had just tuned it up and figured it was just some oil burning off. Turns out there was a cracked fuel line spraying gas right near the exhaust manifold. That older guy had been a diesel mechanic in the navy for twenty years. My friend said if that guy had walked away without saying anything, he could have ended up with a fireball on the news. Now he makes a point to ask every single person who comments on his equipment to come show him exactly what they see.

the_pat1mo ago

Play devil's advocate here-sometimes the noise from armchair experts is worse than ignoring them entirely.