Working Hard to Piss Off Your Customers
Word spreads fast when you provide an excellent product or service or even just a better alternative in a specific geography.
I’ve been going to the same Chinese restaurant for the last 4 years. It’s been satisfactory. The food is decent, they provide fast & friendly service and I’ve never had any food items missing from an order. I’m relatively easy to please. I’ve been satisfied and haven’t looked any further when I want Chinese food, locally…until recently.
A friend of mine was told about a new (er) Chinese restaurant (they also serve Japanese and Thai) and how great the food was. She decided to try the new joint. She thought the food was great. She told me about the food, but added that the service wasn’t that great. There was a long wait for certain things and the restaurant was out of rice for sushi.
I, too, decided to try out the new place while disregarding the complaints about the service.
I immediately went online to find their website. Nope, not there. I did, however, find a few directory listings with their contact info (but no menu and no link to a website) – so I called. I asked if they had a website so I could take a look at their menu and order. The woman on the phone said they didn’t have a website because they just opened (7 months ago). Couldn’t send by email either – so I had to drive the 2 miles to grab a menu. STRIKE 1. I ordered from the parking lot to see how long it would take…50 minutes!!! STRIKE 2. I left to run a couple of errands, came back after 50 minutes and still had to wait another 20 minutes. FOUL TIP IN THE DIRT. The owner was very apologetic, though, and assured me this long of a wait was a freak occurrence. I told him not to worry about it and went on my merry way. I got home and was missing a few things…OUCH! STRIKE 3. The situation was laughable at this point. I went back, got what was missing and received another sincere apology.
My wife and I had ordered a few different things to figure out what was good. The fact was everything we ordered was fantastic. Now after the 3rd strike, many people might give up on this business. But, I’m very laid back and always give people the benefit of the doubt (especially when the food is so damned good). I wasn’t ravenous on this particular day (another factor that kept my head cool).
We’ve gone back to order from the same place again. The only problem this time was that we had to wait for some rolls because the sushi rice wasn’t thawed (totally forgivable because the restaurant was dead between normal lunch and dinner times).
I wrote this to get your opinion.
1. As a customer, how many times do you forgive and forget AND what are the most important factors when it comes to your decision to revisit a restaurant (or any other business)?
2. As a business, when do you stop making excuses AND when do you get prepared enough to live up to your own hype/promises? How many customers do you have to lose? How many potential customers have you already lost?
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