A perfect start to your date at a restaurant – wheel in with your girl and hand over the keys to a valet. You don’t search for parking, nor do you risk a ticket and the best part is you don’t have to walk back a long long way to the restaurant. Can’t ask for more, right?

Wrong! Picture This…

You have a great dinner, stuff yourself with dessert, pay your bill and walk out with the chocolate still melting in your mouth. You hand over the token to the valet who then runs to find your key, your car and drive it back to you. Suddenly you have a problem.

All this while, you are on the road, in the dust, the rain, the heat, and everything else to spoil your date. Not to mention the probability of the moral police beating up your girl for wearing the sexy outfit that so impressed you! So what should have ended as a perfect evening at a restaurant suddenly ends with you getting impatient, jittery and a wee bit irritated.


I have always hated valet service because they never closed this loop on customer service. Well, until now.

We caught dinner at Zara, the Tapas Bar yesterday and when I asked for the cheque they asked me for my valet parking token. So by the time I was done paying for my bill, my car was waiting for me outside. No waiting and a perfect end to a lovely evening thanks to Zara.

The real value in the Valet and probably any other service is if the experience at the last touch point is at least as good as the first... The better thing to do of course is to Save the Best for Last

P.S. - This is my first attempt at a cartoon strip. Hopefully it will get better with time :)

 


Comments

Nirav link
12/03/2009 7:18am

Good one!
Btw, you need to be in a place like Mumbai to understand the true value of services like valet parking. Its still better to spend ten minutes outside the restaurant waiting for the car, rather than park 2 kms away from the spot, only to walk back in the rain to find that the car has been towed away!

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Ishwar S
12/03/2009 7:34pm

Haha, I can imagine the situation in Mumbai.

You are right I don't actually hate valet. Just get a little iriitated and impatient at the end.

Even without them closing the loop, its a great service, but if they did close the loop, won't you just love it much much more

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Vibram Five Fingers link
17/04/2011 4:04am

There is value in the model undoubtedly, especially for thought leaders and wannabe thought leaders.

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