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Rescuing a Bad Experience:
Lessons in turning a bad situation into a good one.
Let me tell you about one
of my birthday dinners. My wife made reservations at a
fairly exclusive restaurant for Saturday night at 7 p.m. We had never
been there,
heard great things and were anticipating a memorable night. Boy did we
get one.
Arriving promptly at seven we were told that it would be about a fifteen
minute delay
in getting seated. No problem. Fifteen minutes later and no explanation,
my wife
approached the hostess (women always get the dirty work) and asked about
the
delay only to be told that it would be twenty minutes more. At five until
eight, I was
fuming and essentially ready to walk out. There were nine empty tables.
It was taking an average of twenty minutes just for a table to be reset.
Eight o'clock, we were seated.
Of course, my wife asks the hostess to see the manager. We clearly wanted
to
know what we would be "comped" for our aggravation. Typically you might
receive a
free drink or dessert. The manager came over, apologized profusely,
explained the
various reasons why service was sloppy and gave us a $70 bottle of wine.
Things
were looking up.
We were enjoying dinner and not paying too much attention to the fact
that the
courses were trailing each other by sometimes a half an hour. Between the
soup
and the entrée, our waiter approached, further explaining what was going
on, was
totally disgusted with the entire situation and told us that the entire
meal
was on the house!
OK then, we were not even down that road in our thought process. Of
course we
gladly accepted it and in fact left a tip commensurate with what the bill
would have
been. What can we learn?
1.Don't Market Something You Can't Deliver
I am used to waiting in say an Outback Steakhouse for an hour on a
Saturday
when it is understood that there are no reservations. But a full hour
wait after a
reserved time is ridiculous. Turns out that there was a special event at
the
stadium across the street and there was a rush on the restaurant early so
people could make it to the eight o'clock show. The restaurant should
have
anticipated and logistically arranged to handle the volume or limit the
volume.
There is nothing worse than prematurely marketing a service when you
don't
have the capacity to handle the results of a successful marketing
campaign.
Understand what your capacity is. Understand the typical volumes various
marketing campaigns might generate. Match the marketing potential with
the service delivery.
2.Have the Right Skill Sets in Place
In addition to logistically not being prepared, the restaurant seemed to
have an
abundance of hostesses and not enough people bussing tables and it would
also
seem by the backlog at the quite visible cooking area, not enough cooks.
If you offer a service and do not have the right skill sets in place to
make the
experience a great one, your brand will suffer as word of mouth spreads.
Anticipate and even over anticipate the people you need to deliver an
exceptional level of service.
3.Keep the Customer Informed
While the hostesses were lax in this area, both the manager and the
waiter
went out of their way to explain in great detail what had happened that
night.
The manager came over a half a dozen times and the waiter at every water
glass filling kept informing us and apologizing.
4.Empower Front Line Staff
While the manager gave us the free bottle of wine, it was the waiter that
gave
us the free meal. As far as we could tell, and we were watching
carefully,
there was no collusion going on behind the scenes. Restaurants are
certainly
not the only service industries doing this. There are many hotel examples
as well.
If a staff member sees a situation going wrong then they need to be
empowered
to make it right. That means establishing some broad parameters of what
constitutes making it right and entrusting staff to apply the right
solutions in
given situations. As long as the parameters are set and agreed upon there
are no surprises for anyone except hopefully a newly delighted customer.
At the end of the day, would my wife and I go back to this restaurant?
That's a hard call. They made the situation right and the food was
excellent.
What will happen? I will not go on to a restaurant review site and post a
bad review.
I will not tell friends in casual conversation to avoid the place. My
word of mouth
will probably be neutral. It would have been profusely negative and
widespread
otherwise.
And one final thought, if my wife had not been vocal it is unsure whether
there
would have been an opportunity to save face. In fact we were about to
walk out.
And that is what many customers do. They remain silent, vote with their
feet
and never come back. So to add a fifth suggestion, elicit feedback on
your
service as you are providing it, whether the service is good, bad or
indifferent in
your opinion. The important thing is to ask on the spot.
Chances are you will never hear about it in a satisfaction survey later.
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