Let’s continue our investigation on the customer experience offered in the restaurant industry, particularly we focus on the delicate phase of customer reception
Today we present you Vasiniko: restaurant and pizzeria from Naples opened up few months ago in XXV of April Square (close to Corso Garibaldi), Milan.
The name comes from the term “Vasinicola”, basil in the typical dialect from Naples. Actually, basil is the file rouge of the whole store not only because it’s the main ingredient of every course listed in the menu but also because each furniture, rigorously green, recalls this herb creating an energetic contrast with the white color of other elements of the store.
What makes this place energetic is not only the green color of the furnitures but also and especially the charming welcome of the staff: according to our personal experience, this is the real differentiating value of Vasiniko (without taking anything away from the quality and the delicious taste of their courses).
The store is very capacious and it’s impossible to not notice the shop windows and the relative sign that appear both on Corso Garibaldi and Piazza 25 Aprile. From the entrance it’s possible to take a look on the interior: numerous tables are arranged to offer a sufficient amount of room to the clients who need to seat and pass through.
It’s lunch time, the store is very crowded (mostly at the cashier), but because of the capacious size of the place just described, you don’t feel a sensation of chaos, perhaps you are stimulated to enter.
We go through the entrance of the store and we are immediately welcomed by the greeting and by the discrete but professional smile of the owner: after we communicate him our desire to have a meal, he turns to the waiter asking to escort us to one table, in this way after few seconds we sit comfortably.
As we have already anticipated many times (please read here), smile and greeting are the conditio sine qua non to prepare positively the client to the experience she is going to live. Additionally, its’ important to transmit to the customer she is in “good hands” giving already a positive proof of the place and the people that will help her in living a superior customer experience.
How? Exactly like Vasiniko! Addressing clients professionally, communicating with colleagues and employees with complicity, respect and tranquility, without passing on the customer nervous relationships and managing the moment of entrance and accommodation in the shortest period of time without frenzy.
However, the most exciting aspect of our customer experience is the moment after accommodation, in other words when we have the first point of contact with the waiter who serves us the lunch. Right after we take a seat, the waiter kindly asks us whether we are familiar with the menu and he explains us with passion and helpfulness the lunch list with the different combination available.
After a while, we opt for a salad (approaching the summer season, we are not bikini – ready yet…): unlike many colleagues of other restaurants who just take the order without enthusiasm, the waiter seizes the moment to offer us an experience in which our emotions are mixed with traditions and stories in a “Neapolitan” way.
“Ladies! How is it possible to take just a salad with all of these God-given gifts???” says the waiter with an heavy Neapolitan accent. His congeniality is incredible, in few seconds we have a fun conversation that donates us many smiles: we are joking on our order that is believed too dietetic by the waiter with respect to the other more succulent courses available on the list.
After we ask him a suggestion on which salads is the best between the “Posillipo” and the “Caracciolo”, his answer is a true lecture on storytelling to be made to the best experts of the industry: “They are both very beautiful places located near Naples, I personally prefer Posillipo since it is a charming town near the sea and you always have a great time there!”. Without any doubt we opt for a Posillipo salad.
The waiter translates the situation in a parallel world, telling us a story about him, about us: he is describing with shining eyes his own city, he makes us travel with imagination to the extent that envisioning the beauty of the landscape enabled us anticipate the beauty and the good taste of the course.
The expectation is not disappointed: the salad is an explosion of different colors, perfumes and we have the sensation to taste a real “piece” of Naples.
That’s how Vasiniko makes the customers fell in love and transform them in promoters. It tells the clients a story, the story of its products and it makes them dream, going beyond their expectations, surprising and exiting them, exactly like it did with us.
