If you read my rant about restaurants the other day, you know that it really yanks my crank to get poor service, in a place where really the only thing different they have to offer is service. Read between the lines, because this applies to a lot of businesses and not just restaurants. Here's my take on it and a why I think most company's (like restaurants) don't get it and spend their money promoting their brand in exactly all the wrong places and treat selection and training just like they do pricing the food. Its pretty basic.
- The food is not really the reason we come to a restaurant (for example) to begin with. It might be why we come the first time or two , but once you have tasted a Big Mac, you know what it tastes like and it probably is not the reason we went back and bought another one or a tenth one. We went back to your restaurant the fourth or fifth time because we like how we were treated by your employees. It either wasn't bad or it was great. You have a 50-50 chance of seeing me again if it wasn't bad and probably an 100 % chance of seeing me again if it was great. You have a zero percent chance ( 0% ) of seeing me again anytime soon if your people should be cleaning gutters instead of waiting tables.
- Everybody has burgers. Everybody has French fries, Everybody sells drinks. Yours, while made to your specifications in your extremely special way, is not really all that different than anybody else's. A burger is a burger is a burger is a burger. Taste may dictate the purchase and it may be that you like Big Macs over Whoppers for example, but if you get treated like a nobody where they make the one you like, chances are you will not go there as often. Treat me like I don't count and I won't come back. I'll eat my second choice ten times before I'll come back where I might like the food better but you hire morons, so you make it easy for me, I go somewhere else where they don't.
- Cute Uniforms and goofy accessories you make your employees wear really has no affect on where I spend my money or how many times I visit you. I can't remember the last time I decided to go visit a place again because the employee I interacted with was wearing a certain color shirt, some button with a cute saying on it or some goofy ball cap with your latest promotional saying on it. I came back over and over again because the employee inside the uniform wearing your button treated me like I meant something. They were polite. They said please. The called me sir (or learned my name and used it). When I said Thank you, they said you're welcome. They were prompt. There hands were clean. They didn't interrupt me while a conversation was taking place at the table. You either have to hire that characteristic in your folks or you may find it in people who will need your help to develop it by being trained extensively. The point is if you hire a rude moronic ding dong to wait on me, they will cost you more in the long run than it would have to spend the money to hire the right person and spend months to train them in the first place. Hiring the wrong person makes as much sense as lighting your gas appliances with hundred dollar bills.
- Past visits dictate future business. Where we eat has nothing to do really with how cute your latest building is or your latest marketing slogan. You are wasting money thinking I will come into your business just because you put a red stripe on top of it or add neon signs to a window. My wife and I are probably just like a lot of people. We eat out a lot. 1-10 times a month , more or less. The conversation goes something like this. "Hey honey, you want to go out to eat?". "Sure", she says. "Where do you want to go", I say? "I don't know where do you want to go?", She says. Then we start naming restaurants. "Want to go to (Insert Name)?" The very next thing said will determine whether or not I go to your establishment and I guarantee you it has nothing at all to do with TV commercials, Billboards, Logos, uniform or cutesy reader board signs. I'll say "How about (Insert name) and she'll say " Remember the last time we were there?". At this exact moment in time, your future business depends upon her answer. If the last time I was there, your service sucked, we will go somewhere else. Period. All the money you put into everything else may as well have been burned in a pagan ceremony in front of your corporate headquarters extolling your stupidity. It probably also will make me think twice about visiting your other locations.
Every business that depends upon repeat customers would do well to read this article. My repeat customer business and my continuing loyalty has nothing at all to do with how much you spend on Marketing.
My advice is this. If you run a customer dependant business , remember the customer as you create your budgets. Then while you are determining how to spend the money you have allocated, quit viewing the training of your staff including the staff selection process as a line item cost. When you do that you will actively encourage your front line managers to figure out ways to reduce their costs in order to make the profit statements look better. Instead, make sure they spend the money on the selection process to get the right people and on the training process to encourage them to treat me right when I make the decision to show up at your front door. Put all your efforts into making sure my wife says your service doesn't suck and you won't need more billboards or cuter buttons.
Lets start a revolution back to good service . Send this on to your favorite company or place where you get piss-poor service
Thankx for reading my rant !
bigmike
Visit my blog online at (click here) http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/
I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.
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Mike,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me say that I agree totally with your post. I think especially in certain markets, which are now saturated with restaurants, the service is really a distinguishing factor in brining back repeat business. But, I took serious issue with some of the statements you made in your post.
The food is not really the reason and Everybody has burgers. This is true of burgers and french fries. And, for some of us, of other things. Those of us that can cook on our own could probably replicate the dishes we see at any given restaurant at home for less money if we really wanted to. BUT food is a significant factor. Maybe not in going to McDonald's, or Friday's, or even BurgerBar or Craft Steak. But there are some really unique concepts out there now. Brazillian steakhouse? Gourmet buffets? Asian/Italian fusion? Signature dishes. Signature cocktails. Signature wine, cocktail, and even beer pairings. The food at some restaurants does really set them apart. Granted, again, with saturation, this is less true. Brazilian steakhouses were once a novelty. Now there's at least a handful in every major food and beverage market in the country.
Cute Uniforms and goofy accessories do make a difference. Nobody in their right mind would ever come out and say, "I'm going back to Friday's because I really liked the button that lady was wearing." But eating out is an experience. And yes, service is the cornerstone of that experience, BUT the lighting in the room, the way the table is set, the staff uniforms, are all part of it as well. Friday's is a fun and exciting place to go. The food is nothing special, and the service is okay for a restaurant in its price range, but could be better. Why do they continue to get customers? Because of the fun atmosphere and experience, including the goofy outfits.
Why does Ed Debevic's do so well even though the servers are deliberately rude? It's part of the theme and ambience, and it works.
Why does Hooters do well? Yes, the wings are good. But they're far from the only good wings in town. Yes, the girls take good care of their customers. But the orange shirts and tube tops certainly don't hurt.
Past visits dictate future True, to an extent. If you had a particularly pleasant or unpleasant first experience at a restaurant, it will affect future decisions heavily. And, keep in mind, first impressions are the most important. If I go to a restaurant several times, and love the food, the service, everything the first time I go, but have a bad experience down the line, I'm likely to excuse it as a "bad night" for the server, the cook, whoever. If the first time is terrible, good luck getting a mulligan, even if I hear rave reviews from friends and family.
The key here, though, is that marketing does matter at least as much. You had to have that first experience. At least once, you've asked your wife where she wanted to go, and she's said "Let's try somewhere new." Where did you go? A place you'd never heard of, or a place you'd heard advertised, read reviews of, seen signs for, etc. which peaked your interest? Especially with the saturation in the market right now, restaurants need to market their product to get people in the door.
Where I think you're 100% right, however, is that they are different than grocery stores for one reason. They don't sell food, they sell an experience. Restaurants don't advertise with just their menus. They advertise with pictures, slogans, phrases, which feature smiling staff, a certain ambience, etc. They promise not just good food, but a certain type of experience, whether that be "quick," "cozy," "elegant," "romantic," "fun," "unique." Whatever their promise is, perhaps more restaurants would make it through years 2 and 3 if they were as good at delivering on the promise as they were at imagining it.
Zach, of course is dead spot on in his answer to my post. I admit I oversimplified it, kind of like a dramatic affect or literary license in a detective book or a film review. The point is not lost on me however. There are multiple reasons and multiple variables in why we eat at certain restaurants, or new concepts.
ReplyDeleteGetting me as the customer past the initial draw for the food or the fun experience and then let your staff turn that experience bitter or annoying, and see how many times I come back.
That is the point.
-bigmike