Well Served: Lessons in Excellence from Canada’s Top Restaurant

Earlier this year, Montreal’s Mon Lapin was named the top restaurant in Canada in the annual ranking of the country’s top 100 places to eat.

My wife and I recently ate there.

Is it worthy of its place on the list? Absolutely!

But it wasn’t only the food that blew me away so much as the service, which was beyond amazing.

Three elements of the Mon Lapin experience really struck me: How knowledgeable the employees are about all aspects of the business; how well everyone worked together to provide a seamless customer experience; and how the employees demonstrated by their attitude that they are invested in the company’s success.

These three elements reinforced one another, creating an experience that was greater than the sum of its parts.

As a business owner, I know how much effort it takes to have the public-facing team members operate at such a high level.

I left in awe of the owners, managers and staff of Mon Lapin – and wondering how I could apply their winning formula to Knak.

First, a look at the three elements that struck me.

1. Knowledge: Everyone was an expert

Over the course of the evening, we had around 10 different people interact with us.

The first thing that impressed me was that every employee we talked to was able to answer our questions. Nobody said ‘Let me get back to you on that,’ or ‘Let me find someone with an answer.’

From the assistant server on up, everyone was an expert about anything to do with the restaurant.

Here’s one example.

The olive oil they have for dipping the bread is the best I’ve ever tasted.

I asked the guy clearing the table whether Mon Lapin sells this particular olive oil to its customers.

Yes, he said – and then he launched into a passionate, compelling and detailed story about where the olive oil came from.

His knowledge and his enthusiasm shone through.

Wow!

2. Customer experience: Interactions were seamless

At Mon Lapin, it did not matter which employee we dealt with. Somehow, behind the scenes, they all made it work.

One server explained the menu to us.

Another server, seeing we hadn’t ordered yet, came to take our order.

And so it went throughout the evening, with everyone working smoothly together to offer a seamless customer experience.

There were no glitches, no having to recite specials again, no issues with the bill even though three different people had added items to it – just smooth and natural interactions.

I know from experience that creating seamless customer interactions is very difficult.

Again, wow!

3. Attitude: Employees were invested in authenticity and honesty

Some restaurants will always try to upsell you.

For example, if you ask what dish or wine they recommend, it can often turn out to be the most expensive one on the menu.

Or they encourage you to order way more than you can reasonably be expected to eat.

We were wondering whether to order an extra dish. I was impressed when the server told us we’d ordered just the right amount and that we could always add more later.

She was being honest with us, and honesty creates trust.

That was my third Wow! of the evening.

It was reinforced when my wife realized an ingredient that she asked not be included in a dish, was added by mistake. To compensate, the server gave us a free dessert. It was a nice gesture that showed the staff not only care about the customer, but have authority to act without calling in a higher-up.

Applying Mon Lapin’s principles to Knak (or any other business)

As I thought about my experience at Mon Lapin, I found myself wondering how they were able to put it all together.

How did they create such a culture of excellence? How did they train and enable their employees to provide a seamless customer experience?

And how does any company create a culture where people are always looking to improve, where the answer to the question ‘Can we do better?’ is always ‘Yes!’

I think the answer lies in the following elements.

First, knowledge.

As a business owner, I was super-impressed by the knowledge level of everybody at Mon Lapin.

I wish we had that same all-round level of knowledge at Knak.

As an example, we’ve been trying to get our employees to promote Revenue Pulse, a Marketo consultancy I started before Knak, as a service partner for Knak customers. We’re not trying to do a hard sell; we just want our customers to know that if they need help in Revenue Pulse’s areas of expertise, it’s available.

I can’t tell you how hard it is to get Knak employees aligned with that goal.

It would be great to figure out how to inspire them with the confidence of the serving assistant who talked up the olive oil in response to my question. Instead, too many of our people who aren’t in sales can get uncomfortable with doing anything that vaguely resembles selling – even if it’s in response to a direct customer question.

In my mind, responding to a question is not selling – it’s educating.

But some people even seem to think they will offend a customer if they appear to be selling.

In addition to knowledge, there’s training. Maybe we don’t give our employees enough training about what Revenue Pulse is and how it can help some customers.

If they had that knowledge and were trained in how to express it, they would probably have an easier time talking about it.

I was also in awe of how Mon Lapin managed the seamless interactions with the customers.

At Knak, we want our customers to see us not only as a provider of services, but also as a trusted advisor.

Ideally, we want them to see us as someone who will give them honest advice about what they need. Someone who won’t try to upsell them or try to get them to buy things they won’t use.

But as Knak gets bigger, I find that seamless customer experience becomes more difficult to achieve.

There are more teams and more silos and more people who know everything about their particular area of expertise but not much about other parts of the company.

Training people and instilling knowledge across teams and silos is not easy.

I’ve now started being directly involved in employee and customer onboarding – something I haven’t had the time to do but have recently made a priority.

It’s been an eye-opener. It’s made me realize that at my Knak ‘restaurant’, we need to improve how we do this.

Then there’s employee attitude, which is tied to being invested in the company mission. The assistant server certainly went to a training session about the olive oil, but his enthusiasm about it was all his own. And he wasn’t shy about talking about it even though it was probably technically not part of his job.

What I’d like to see at Knak is for customer-facing people to have all the answers they need without having to ask anyone else or loop in other people. No silos, just a free flow of information made possible by confident employees who master the knowledge.

There are all sorts of ways to cultivate confidence. One is treating employees well.

We certainly make every effort to do right by our employees, and it’s clear to me we need to continue to emphasize that.

Part of our problem in that regard may be that we are a tech company, not a restaurant. In tech, there’s a big focus on getting as big as possible as fast as possible. That means lots of new products, new customers and new hires, which in turn makes it difficult to develop in-depth knowledge and proper training.

I think we need to put more emphasis on the training and enablement side of things. We need to spend more time ensuring that everyone (customers and employees, new and existing) is up to speed on new products, changes to existing products and information updates. I think that will help improve the customer experience.

Parting thoughts

When I go to places that are Number One in their domain, I’m always curious about how they do it.

I think that in Mon Lapin’s case, it’s about attention to detail, a very clear mission, amazing people, really good training, a focus on the customer, great perceived value and a great product.

So hats off to Mon Lapin. And best of luck to them. Becoming Number One is not a finish line, but the start of a whole new (and more difficult) race. Staying on top will almost certainly be harder than getting there in the first place.