‘It’s like gentle parenting’: Server shows how she ‘trains’ customers not to ask ‘dumb questions’
Service workers do so much, like teaching people how to use Google. This restaurant worker helps a potential customer out by showing them how to themself out. Viewers are calling their benevolent act "gentle parenting."
Dear customers, Google is your best friend
Recently, @chckpeass shared the headaches of working in the service industry. While at work, they answered the phone for a customer with a question. The caller wanted to know how far the restaurant was from LAX airport. @chckpeass decided to use this as a teaching moment, and instead of looking it up for them, they said they would Google it for them and placed the caller on a brief hold. Williams's plan was to leave this customer on hold, but the customer called back.
"I'm sorry about that. I didn't realize the call disconnected. Our internet's been out all day. I know, even Google's not really loading. Would you mind trying that on your phone for me?" @chckpeass tells the caller. After the caller Googled the answer to their own question, Williams said she was glad they were able to look it up and asked if there was anything else she could help them with.
The video has over 3.3 million views and 479,900 likes.
This video was a response to a comment left on another of @chckpeass's videos where they explained how they handle "dumb questions" from customers. The comment was critical of @chckpeass ways and said, "Or you could just answer the question." @chkpeass probably posted this video with an example to demonstrate just how silly some customers' questions are.
What if a customer asks in person?
No worries, @chckpeass has you covered with this in a separate video.
"So, if someone were to do this in person, there's a few different options, but we're basically gonna do the exact same thing, right?" @chckpeass explained. They then offered some options, like pretending to look it up on the company iPad but putting the iPad on airplane mode so it doesn't load and, again, asking them to look it up themselves. @chckpeass says she refuses to answer people's silly questions because she gets a lot of joy out of helping people help themselves.
"My ancestors fought for my right to be disrespectful at work, and i think im doing them a disservice by sucking up. also a lot of you cant do it how i do it, i am a hard worker and i am nice and helpful, i just dont entertain dumb things," @chckpeas captions another video in response to people saying they would just help the customer with silly questions.
@chckpeass Replying to @Jai Williams just in case you want to learn how to do it too!! ???????????? #servertok #customerserviceproblems #foodservice ♬ original sound - ˚ʚ Q ɞ˚
What are viewers saying?
Despite some people disagreeing with @chckpeass's approach, most comments agreed with @chckpeass that the customer's question was silly and that customers need to solve their own issues when they're Googleable.
"Don't you have to GOOGLE the business to get the number to call?? why can't they just hit Google maps?? lol," says one comment.
"The fact they called back again instead of just googling it then wasting both our time smh," says another person.
"Literally you reworked their brain to be able to solve their own problem," shares someone else.
"When you think abt it they were probably already using Google maps to get the restaurant number," says another.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @chckpeass for comment via email and TikTok direct message.
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