Do you still sharpen your knives?

We end up staying in Sydney several times per year, either for training or mentoring/consulting work. When we do, one of the hotels that we really like is the Westin. I would find it hard though, to list all the reasons why I like it. (There are some things I don’t like about it too but that’s a topic for another day).

But one of the things that has always surprised me, each and every time I eat breakfast there, is how sharp the knives are. Clearly, someone must be assigned to sharpen them, or they replace them very regularly (unlikely). Alternately, one of the staff members might have been passionate about it and it was an individual thing but we stayed about 160 nights in hotels last year and I can tell you that most hotels (big or small) don’t bother doing this.

Today at breakfast, I noticed that the knives weren’t sharp. Same thing happened last time. I can’t help but thinking that this might be one little tell-tale sign of some belt-tightening in the running costs of the hotel. If it was an individual effort, perhaps that person has just left.

However, it got me wondering about what impact these little things have ie: the little things that companies do but that would never appear on a brochure. Do you have little things that you do for your customers that are a bit unique and that your customers appreciate without telling you? Do you still do them? Do you still sharpen your knives?

2011-09-08