May 16, 2008
They couldn’t seem to care less about me, my business, or the world in general. I found a better, faster provider, and I am happy. I hope they are. The experience brought to mind the hassle we all face in our daily lives and how, in most cases, we lose while the nameless, faceless, corporation wins. We don’t get our rebate. We’re overcharged. No one will come to fix our appliance in a timely fashion, and the workmen never finish the job unless you threaten their firstborn son. We are all in this together, and yet, no one seems to care about the satisfaction of someone else.
“Well, that’s too bad, Roy,” you might be saying, “How does that relate to the restaurant business and the customer we need to make happy?”
First, if you are an owner or manager of a restaurant or any supporting business, you have customers you must keep happy on an ongoing basis—your regulars, and potential new regulars who might be walking through your door for the first time. And, to a certain extent, you had better think of your crew as customers too, since with one fell swoop, they can quietly ruin you.
Now, I know none of this is brain surgery, but I am amazed how often the biggies and the details get lost in the workings of the restaurant. First, the greeting. I call a quick-service with a question on hours, menu, or location. I get put on hold. My tomatoes ripen before someone comes back. Or if I am at the counter, I can’t get anyone to acknowledge my presence or the fact that I am waving the take from the first Brink’s robbery trying to get someone’s attention. In regular corporate America, that is equivalent to the computer menu. You know, when you call the company, and an electronic Deep Throat reads you nine prompts, which you forget and push zero, and they end the call because you figured that out.
So, I order the food and pray the computer doesn’t go out, because I know the person cannot deal with change. Once I gave $10.01 for a $9.01 ticket and sent the counter person into apoplexy.
I get the food, turn around, and can’t find a table that has been wiped since Eisenhower signed the treaty.
Now, given all of the above, because of my connection to the business, I really just want to tell the manager he has problems. I don’t want free water or fries on my birthday. I just want him to fix it before other customers figure it out. Once, I got a rather large piece of plastic in my salad. I showed it to the server. She picked it up and disappeared. She brought me my check and charged me full price for the salad. No manager present. Lost customer.
Last, but not least, no empowerment. Crew people who can’t fix the problem. It takes the hand of the manager who is in the office filling out reports. By the time the chain of command tightens, the customer is long gone.
OK, so how do you keep the customer happy? Besides the real pills that walk around looking for trouble, it’s not real hard. It’s the Golden Rule, the Native American idea of walking a mile in another person’s moccasins. It’s just playing nice with others. Greet the customer, take his order promptly, service the order, give the correct change, and smile. Your mother did that for you every day. Well, maybe not the change, although my mother made a lot of money charging my friends for lunch at our house. It’s keeping the restaurant clean with plenty of napkins, condiments, and empty trash cans. It’s having a manager on the floor talking to the customers and helping the crew when they get behind. No job is too small for the manager to pitch in on. It’s crew training. And, regular performance reviews with regular earned raises.
No kidding, I knew a guy who worked for two years without a raise. He finally got up the nerve to ask for one. He went into the bosses’ office to find out that the boss thought he had been transferred to another department. Not much presence there, huh?
And, it’s empowerment. You set up guidelines on what each level of your crew can handle all by themselves and you let them do it. Yeah, there’ll be a few free hamburgers, but in the long run, especially if you treat your crew fairly, they’ll take care of your customers and satisfy them. And, your customers will be back because a problem was taken care of with no hassle.
One thought for the kitchen: If you wouldn’t eat it, how do you think your customer will react? Unappetizing food will not bring another customer back. And think about the beauty, too. Sometimes the littlest thing can help. White-meat chicken, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower should never be served on the same plate.
So, think about those words, “customer satisfaction,” and don’t just let them be a slogan somewhere in the storeroom. The industry is crowded with a lot of alternatives. With some time spent with your crew and your customers, you can keep both a lot happier.
Peace and happy trails.
