OK, I have a burger confession. I am positively, absolutely a lover of all things burger. And the other night, I was in the mood for a good one. I had been to Burger Up a few times in the past and knew that I liked their food. (I lost a bet to Aaron West and had to buy him a burger. I still think he’s had to buy me more burgers from losing bets, though. I’m just saying!)

The place was packed with a line out the door. So instead of waiting, I headed straight to the bar and sat there. Now, it’s a funky kind of atmosphere—the kind where you can either get great servers or weird you-should-be-glad-I’m-serving-you servers. Hopefully, you know what I mean.

It turned out that my server, Troy, was a really nice guy with enough cool ink on his arms to rewrite War and Peace. He jumped right in, gave me a menu and started taking care of me. When the food came out, it consisted of this gorgeous burger with white Cheddar cheese, Benton’s bacon, and Jack Daniel’s maple ketchup. Sitting next to it in a silver cup was an order of truffle fries, with what I believe was Parmesan cheese. AHHHH!!!! Loved it!

Normally, I’m not a big fan of ketchup. In fact, I’m not an admirer of tomatoes that aren’t vine ripened. But this ketchup was rockin’ my world that night. So much so, I asked my waiter, who was elbow deep in the sink washing glasses, if I could have some extra to see if it would go well with the fries. Now here’s where my night just got better.

Without skipping a beat, he said, “SHOOT yeah!” with a look that said, Dude, is that all you want? Ask me for something difficult already! He quickly dried off his hands, went straight to the kitchen and reappeared quickly with a stainless steel ramekin of the red liquid fantasticness. C’mon!!! I can barely get the folks at the other burger joints to look at me when I’m ordering! It’s a thing … I like to be looked at.

This kind of customer service makes me want to come back time and time again. It wasn’t just him taking care of me. It was him making me feel like my request was the smallest task he had accomplished that day. And we all know how badly some servers make us feel for requesting just about anything. He made me feel like he had been waiting all day to take care of ME.

That’s how you do customer service. Do you think he got a bigger than normal tip? SHOOT yeah, as well as a repeat customer in me. I will bypass my normal burger joint, which costs me less money, to go to Burger Up and receive better customer service.

As a leader, you have to ask yourself the question: Is my team treating customers like this? If not, why? Not only did HE get more money in his pocket for doing so, but the restaurant profited, too—not because of the great food but because of the awesome service.

Question: How does this kind of customer service effect your decision to patronize a business?