This week we share with you Cinzia’s achievements, her passion for customer service and customer satisfaction, and her return to a balanced life.

Cinzia found the competition daunting, at first, but understood that competition is good. It keeps you striving for excellence. Over the years she has established her own clientele which is a very different market to that of the competition right next door. Her clients are loyal to the distinctiveness that Deli-C has managed to establish.  They come for the uniqueness of the food which Cinzia is able to offer them; this is a result of the relationship she has nurtured with her customers in terms of having a distinct ability of being able to provide, more often than not, dishes which are off the menu and either the customers’ or Cinzia’s individual creation. Cinzia has found the interaction with her customers very rewarding. People ask her for advice on ingredients and combinations of different flavours, and they trust her recommendations.

The most satisfying and gratifying part of the business for Cinzia is knowing that her culinary passion is able to generate an income. She thrives on being able to serve people with good intention, knowing that providing a meal is a form of nurturing, and the realisation that people will pay her for what she provides. Cinzia has found this experience most rewarding.

Despite the obvious pleasure she derives from her interaction with her customers, the biggest challenge for Cinzia remains the customer. One remains wary of one’s dealings with the public, as with the amount of exposure that you have on a day-to-day basis you never know how a person will react to any particular situation, and the outcome of an interaction can upset your whole day; it can also upset the staff and can ultimately affect your business.

Cinzia invests time in ensuring that her staff know how to resolve customer complaints and customer dissatisfaction. She also spends time listening to her staff’s feedback from the customers. Customer service and customer satisfaction are priorities for her because she believes that if she cannot offer the customers what they want and satisfy the customers with her service she does not have a business. Even though it can be highly frustrating at times, because every customer is an “expert” and every customer wants to tell her how to run her business, she needs to know whether she is offering the kind of service that will bring the customers back.

For the first two years, Cinzia had virtually no work / life balance. A typical day in her life was waking up in the morning, going to Deli C, working like crazy, coming home at night, doing the administration - which involved all the accounting and the salaries -  and then going to sleep. She had no social life, never played any sport, never went to gym, never saw her friends. It was only during the third year that Cinzia started to relax and feel that it was time to bring some balance back into her life.  Cinzia started by moving house to be closer to the shop and that in itself opened up a whole spectrum of things. She was able to socialize; she joined a gym and started a monthly supper club with some of her close friends. These seemingly small changes have made a big difference in Cinzia’s work / life balance.

To be continued...

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