What Hospitality Teaches About Leadership

How does empathy improve customer service in hospitality?

Jeri Seeley joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories for a wide-ranging conversation about service, people, and leadership.

With a long career across hospitality, culinary, and journalism, Jeri brings a service-industry lens to leadership: why service takes finesse, why the customer isn’t always right but always your customer, and why empathy cannot be automated away.

Jeri Seeley has spent a long career in hospitality, culinary, and journalism, bringing a service-first perspective to leadership and customer relationships.

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Full transcript of the interview follows.

A Career in Hospitality and Culinary

Jeri Seeley: Hi, Richard! I’ve been in hospitality and culinary and journalism for a very long time. The hospitality industry has kind of been running through my blood since I was a teenager, helped put me through school, working on all of the different things that I’ve you know, kind of started doing along the way.

you know, and and I’ve I’ve had some really good leaders. I’ve had some really bad leaders. I myself was a novice leader, finding my footing on the kind of leadership that I wanted to to put out in the world, and kind of, you know, finally found that footing, and know you know what I believe to be the right type of leader

Jeri: Throughout my career. So I, I had a 33 long career in tech with basically on my own. Okay.

Why does hospitality require finesse with guests and staff?

Jeri: Well, the hospitality industry, you know. It’s a service industry by standard. So you have to have some type of understanding, you know, working with people continuously, so to be able to work with guests. And you know your staff, both front and back of house. Those are 2 different animals completely to get them to work together is also

How do you coach a shy employee to talk with customers?

Jeri: You know, takes a little bit of finesse on certain days, and then, you know, you just you find those diamonds in the rough. I had a girl, and this was probably one of my favorite stories, and I felt so great about it after it was done. You know she was an amazing bartender.

She came from a nightclub background. You know I had at the time we were. We weren’t a nightclub background. We were, you know, kind of more of a cocktail bar. You know you have your clientele, and you want your repeat customers. You want people sitting at your bar coming in multiple times a week.

So you’re building and the rapport. There was a lot of people that didn’t believe that she was going to go far

Jeri: I, you know, watched her, and she was always amazing at getting out the drinks quickly and accurately. But she just didn’t have that like. I guess, the the confidence to speak with the guests while she was doing it, or just know how to handle that. So for a few days in a row.

I got back behind the bar, and I worked with her, and I made every drink. I talked to her. I told her you’re going to talk to the guests while I make their drinks, and I’m here to jump in if needed. But you’re going to be the one doing this interesting.

So we we did. We worked together, for, you know, a few days in a row, and she just kept getting more and more confident with each guest, and she wasn’t allowed to make the drink, so she didn’t have anything to like keep her tied up or occupied. So

Jeri: Taking the drinks. She was talking, and you know, in the beginning I was talking more, and she was interjecting, and then I’d back away and do less. And and so she ended up becoming one of the best bartenders that I was working with at that point in time, and she had a great, you know.

group of regulars that came in, and she always did well with her tips. So you know she was. She was a great success for that, and one of

Why is customer service getting worse?

Jeri: There. There are a lot you know, and and it’s not just a 1 thing. You know, the the the older service workers want to blame the younger ones. The younger ones want to blame the older ones. There’s miscommunication. There’s there’s a lot of things that need to be fixed.

I think we’re trying to work on that figure out the gaps. You know. I know that the younger service and hospitality workers don’t quite have that like finesse of talking with the guests and understanding that that’s part of their position. Yet they, the older clientele need, or the older workers, need to understand and remember that the younger ones kind of bring a different mentality, and like at work they can quickly do a tiktok.

Come, visit me. They can, you know, bring in clientele from people that they’re friends with outside of. And their technology helps a lot. So there’s things to be learned on both sides. It’s just got to be open to communication

Jeri: If they. I think that’s I think that’s a problem in every industry right now. There’s so many times that I’ve called, and the customer service has been awful. I refuse to speak with dte or consumers, Edison, I actually make my husband call them. I’m like I’m not dealing with them like they are ridiculous.

We just went through a situation we canceled our xfinity and moved to at and T. Fiber We were much happier with it, plus we were paying an outrageous amount for xfinity. They you had to do the bundle. You had to do this. And you know, they’re like, Okay, fine, you know.

And we were getting a credit back, which was actually a pretty significant credit. And they were they kept, you know, kind of jerking us around with lack of a better word. For almost 2 months

Nobody Left to Be Empathetic

Jeri: No, they’re not, and you know you’re taking away again the the customer service

Why do automated phone menus frustrate customers?

Jeri: So There’s nobody there to be empathetic. There’s nobody there to understand your problem. And there’s nobody there that actually wants to help you with your problem.

Jeri: Kind of like pushing it through, and you know, escalating it to wherever they think that it needs to go, because they they haven’t heard everything like they give you. Here’s your one through 5 choices of what’s wrong with you know what you’re calling about, and if it doesn’t quite fit into the exact thing then.

Yes, you’re booted back to like the main menu, or a different menu again, and very frustrating, very quick

Doing the Job the Right Way

Jeri: That’s amazing. That’s somebody doing their job the way they should be doing their job. That’s amazing.

The Customer Is Not Always Right

Jeri: Because customers are number one.

Is the customer always right?

Jeri: Yes, they and I do agree. The customer isn’t always right, but they’re still your customer, and they’re still your number one. Without a customer you don’t have a job, you don’t have a business, you don’t have anything. so to try and make them happy.

Flip them and solve the problem as best you can to to take care of them and make them not feel like an idiot or an inconvenience or a problem. You’re doing great

But They Are Still Your Customer

Richard: And they should never be catered to, because you just reinforce their their illness.

How should restaurants handle difficult customers?

Jeri: Oh, I agree, there’s I actually coined. Now there’s Kim’s, and it’s k dot I dot m dot Karen in the making

Handling the Difficult Ones

Jeri: Oh, I’ve seen a lot of Karens in the restaurants through the

Jeri: You know, and and I think the worst ones are the ones that, like, you know, they’re they’re just complaining about everything. But then they eat like 90% of their meal. And then they want to say that they didn’t like it. They, you know. And then how do you argue?

You can’t like completely argue with that. But at the same time it’s like you ate 90% of it. If you didn’t like it, would you really have eaten that much of your food, I mean. Come on.

Jeri: Yeah. And you know, sometimes it’s the server’s fault. Sometimes it’s the kitchen’s fault, sometimes it’s just a day. I mean everybody that works in the industry is is human, you know. You have your good days and your bad days, you know. I like to give every like.

If I’ve gone to a place, and it’s been bad service or been bad food. I’ll give it a second and potentially a 3rd time before I like. Write that place off

How do you deal with a pushy car salesman?

Jeri: I have a problem with dealerships, you know the whole sleazy car salesman. I’ve had a handful of those situations. When I was in my twenties. I looked like I was a teenager, and it didn’t help, because, you know, at the time I was still in college I was working, you know I.

So on my days off yeah, like, throw my hair up in a messy bun. I wear a hoodie ripe up jeans

Jeri: Whatever you know, like I like to be comfortable. Let’s just you know it’s what it is. I went in to get a new car. I have the money. I have the credit. So I go into a dealership to get a new car. I’m looking at a nice jeep wrangler.

I had my husband meet me there who came from a business meeting, so he’s dressed in a suit. The guy at the dealership just wouldn’t even look at me was like talking to my husband about

How do you overcome shyness after losing a spouse?

Richard: Your own accountability. One of the things when my wife passed away, I decided was. okay. 1st of all, I don’t like grief. not a good place to be. Grief isn’t a friend, and second of all, I’m I was super super super shy. Couldn’t have done this. You can’t tell now.

But what I did is I picked up the camera and I photographed national parks. I photographed all of them in the Southwest. Us. Photographed all the State parks went to Renaissance fairs and ran into dancers, belly dancers at Renaissance fairs, and the ones that are all dressed in the head to toe

The Human Touch

Richard: And and hire a Va for some things, because you want a human touch. Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. And oh, my, my, very. I did have a leadership thing. When I was younger I was 17 years old. I managed a liquor store. I was night manager now in California.

You can do that because it’s closed. The liquor bottles aren’t open. So as night manager in a liquor store in Lake Arrowhead, a tourist town. and my boss, you’ll love. This was a World War Ii Nazi submarine commander. He actually sunk American ships got up on the surface.

put the machine guns in and shot any American he could find, or Britt, or whoever and he was quite broken up about it, usually of

Resilience Through Hard Things

Richard: Yeah, I mean they they came out of situations that I can’t even imagine how bad it was. I mean, being one of them was sold into slavery by her parents when she was 14. Guess what kind of slavery and

Richard: Right, which is a kind of failure

Richard: Lot of counseling. Many, many hours of counseling got over it

Closing Thoughts

Richard: So you went as a guest

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