Some friends and I planned on taking this garden planning course this weekend and, in order to make everyone's life easier, I thought it would be a good idea to ask my assistant to sign us all up.

She does a lot of personal stuff for me so that I can work harder, and that's the job, so you can scrape your jaw off the floor.

Moving on.

The drama that has ensued from this simple task has been nothing short of, well, infuriating. First, the web site was apparently not coded to accept reservations for more than one person, so my assistant went through the whole sign-up and the confirmation I received was for one.

So, she contacted them and found out that she could sign up for two at a time only, so she needed to fill out two forms and the second form couldn't have the same name as the first, so she needed another name.

I received the two confirmations, but both were listed as not final because, are you ready, they needed the actual names of the attendees to confirm the registration.

So I got another email yesterday, asking for the additional names, but I was in a client cluster so I completely spaced the email until I was reminded by the organization calling me to demand the other names this morning before 9:00.

Which for some reason made me think of all the restaurants that take reservations and then demand that people give a phone number so the reservation can be confirmed — and call that guest service.

Guest service is about attending to the guest as the guest wants to be attended to. Me, personally, you call me and I am likely going to be really inconvenienced by the interruption in my day. Leave a voice mail and ask me to call you back and, really, if I actually pick up that voice mail (highly unlikely to begin with), I am going to be just a little peeved that I have to confirm my reservation with you.

I actually get downright angry when I make a reservation one day and the very next, someone calls to confirm. 

Look, I know reservations are one of the biggest pains in the asses of the restaurant world, just below no-show staff and above ice machine breakdowns, but being in business isn't about you and your convenience, it is about the guests.

Restaurants that understand this don't notice economic downturns.

So stop pretending that your barriers to good customer service are helping your business. Stop just doing stuff because someone in some meeting decided it sounded like a good idea.

And start asking yourself what you can do to really get in a guest's head and start to deliver on the word hospitality.