Hello restaurant owners.  Look at your business.  Now back to me.   Now back at your business.  Now back to me.

Sadly, a professional is not running your restaurant.    But, if you started doing the following things, it could look like it.

Look down, now back up.  Where are you?  You’re in the lobby, with the woman your business could feed.

What’s in your hand.  Back at me.  I have it!  It’s a blog post with a list of things customers love.

Look again.  The list is now cash.

Anything is possible when your business does what the customer wants.

I’m on a hobby-horse.

Fix the coffee machine

Don’t tell me the coffee machine’s broken.  I.  Don’t.  Care.  Fix it.

Have the manager ring me

I’m trying to organise a room booking, with catering.  Suggest that you will take my details and have the manager ring me.  Don’t make me squeeze it out of you!

Clean the joint

My house/car/dog’s den is cleaner that your mangy little establishment.  I will never again darken its door.  Think!

Would you eat there?  Cleanliness is next to profitableness.

Employ enough staff

I’ve been recently told by a supplier that they’d have to bring in more staff to deal with my booking.  This is correct.

Doing something out of the ordinary normally requires effort.  (This particular discussion involved a frustrating chat over whether someone was willing to open a little earlier than normal.  The income, from previous meetings was £100 for half an hour’s work, plus double that on top, if people stayed to order more.  The person would cost £8 to bring in for that half hour.)

Conduct a brief cost-benefit analysis, before you turn down regular income.

Learn what a croissant is

I’m standing in a hotel.  You do 5-course meals.  You do luxury accommodation.  You do conferences and weddings.

I’m only asking for a miserly accompaniment to my cup of tea. (Second thoughts, I’m off down the road to a larger, national chain.   Are you worried!?  Nah.)

Take responsibility

If something is wrong, I suggest that you pick up that sword of responsibility and wield it to crush my problem.

A nice Earl Grey and brownie will suffice – while I wait.

Behaviour That Leaves Money on the Table

• Ignoring me as I stand at the door, waiting to be served.  This tells me that my custom is not wanted, and my time is less important than yours.  My internal 50 second buzzer is ticking…
• Supplying double the amount to make up for its awfulness.  Second prize, one pathetic, shop-bought scone, with squirty cream.  (Incidentally, they were lifted from the uncovered basket with bare hands.  The milk jug wasn’t clean either…)  First prize, two pathetic, shop-bought… (you get the drift)
• Responding to my complaint, without apologising.  This tells me you’ve acknowledged receipt of my complaint, but you’re not embarrassed by the fallout.  Make contact, apologise, and offer a refund.

We’ve blogged about Northern Ireland customer service on many occasions.  As a service provider, what are you doing to make things better?  We’d love to hear how you turned your business around, by implementing some simple customer service principles.

Places Worth a Second Visit

• TGI Fridays – table attendants introduce themselves before serving you with an American-style cheerfulness
• The Parlour Bar – the staff were impressively welcoming, offering a tour and discussion for catering options
• The Galley Cafe – the food is tasty and well-presented, uniquely situated

Read additional reviews with customer service comments.

If you own a customer-facing food business, and you want to increase sales, via a tailored Customer Experience Management programme, get in touch.

Image credit: kankan.

As business people, we’re all used to reviews, testimonials and are aware of their power when displayed online or in print media.  We proudly display them on our LinkedIn profiles, our website widgets, inside the cover of our books.  However, how should we respond when someone posts a negative comment?

If the reviewer is wrong…

• If the review is factually untrue, and this can be demonstrated, then write to the reviewer and politely ask them to take it down, stating those facts without emotion, blame or threat.
• Prepare yourself for the possibility that they will refuse.
• If they refuse, decide whether to remove the review yourself, or not.  (Beware that many public review and testimonial sites do not offer this facility, and there are many that do not offer you any control over the content at all, or any recourse (such as posting a follow-up comment, or refutation).

If the reviewer has a point…

• If the review is partially or fully true, then write to the review and politely ask them to amend the part that is untrue, or remove the review altogether.  Prepare yourself for the possibility that they will see things differently to you.
• Regardless of the outcome of this request, offer to make a clearly defined restitution (preferably in kind, though not financial) to the reviewer, by way of an apology for their bad experience of your organisation. Some organisations publicise this restitution, for PR purposes.
• NEVER make the mistake of offering restitution on condition that the review is removed.  This will only make things worse, and damage your reputation further.  Restitution should make the customer happy, and be of no immediate benefit to you whatsoever.  (We all know that this will benefit us in the long term though.)
• Statistics show that complainants whose complaint is resolved quickly will most often remain with a supplier, and may become advocates.

If the reviewer makes a personal attack…

Online

• This type of behaviour can only serve to condemn the writer.  There is one correct way to communicate when making a criticism: truthfully, briefly and factually.  Resorting to personal attacks is the way of the emotional abuser, a person who is lacking in self-esteem.  And, it is lazy.
• Remove the review immediately, if possible.  (This is especially important if someone uses your website to attack another person.  Avoid being viewed as someone who allows personal attacks on your sites and profiles.) If it is not possible to remove the review, respond quickly, asking for constructive feedback in order to deal with the issue.  This places you in the stronger, positive, assertive, proactive position.
• If you receive constructive feedback, follow-up quickly with a thank-you and a brief outline of what you have done to improve things.
• Avoid carrying on a slanging match online.  It makes everyone look stupid.

Offline

• Tell them what they’ve done. Keep it factual.
• Tell them how it makes you feel.  Keep it short.
• Tell them what you’d like them to do instead.  E.g. replace the personal attack with some useful suggestions on what the problem really is, and how it can be resolved.
• Tell them what the consequences will be if they don’t do as you ask.  E.g. you won’t begin to work on improving something, if you only receive a vague personal attack.  Make sure you carry through with the consequences.  That may be, for example, to avoid association with that person, as personal attacks are designed only to harm, not help.

I hope these simple strategies help you to understand what happens when someone reviews your product or service.  And, that you never have to use them.  ;)

Image credit: lavverue.

Comment below on how you have dealt with negative reviews or testimonials on and offline.  I’d love to hear your thoughts, and whether you have tried the suggestions above.

The web is a big place.  It’s full of porn, and social networking sites, people flogging all manner of dubious health products and even more dubious information on how to be happy.  Much of it is pretty useless.  How do we sift through the dregs to find the cream?

What I’ve noticed recently is a profusion of hyperlocal sites.  I used to bemoan the fact that websites mentioned England, or America, but forgot about here.  No longer.  People want information.  They want it about their area.  And, they want to be able to filter it by county and town.

So, who’s doing hyperlocal well?

Trip Advisor

Following a very bad experience with a hotel a few months ago, I don’t even do an overnight anywhere, without consulting this site.  It’s a review site, designed to give those booking holidays, trips, and other visits an idea of what a place is like, before booking.

People review for one of two reasons in my opinion:

1. The customer service experience was outstanding.  And, let’s face it, that’s not very difficult in Northern Ireland.
2. The customer service experience made them feel like adopting a life of Asceticism, with need for neither food nor shelter, nor any other frivolities.

Lookaly

Consider Lookaly.  Most reviews are positive, perhaps because we all know each other.

(But those that are poor, are very poor.)  Lee Munroe is not doing the reviews, his users are.  User-generated content.  It’s the way the whole thing’s going.

WhatsOnNI

Jacqueline McGonigle from WhatsOnNI has been very clever in establishing multiple categories on her site.  That means I don’t have to trawl through a reem of Antiques / Crafts / Collectors Fairs for example, to find what I want.  Much of the site’s content is user-generated, like with Lookaly, though she is also very busy blogging, tweeting and Facebooking these events too.  (I wish someone would come up with a Facebook verb.)

People therefore can follow WhatsOnNI using a method of their choice.  It takes time and effort to build a following though, be warned.

Business Events Hub

This is a public Facebook Page, so you don’t need an account to view it, though you will if you want to participate in any discussions on the page.

It’s maintained by Tracy Gilpin from Gilpin Consulting.

Alive on the Coast

Alive on the Coast is surfisode2 from Alive Surf School, for all you Bryan Wilson wannabes out there.   (Incidentally, he never set foot on a surfboard.)

Look at all the good stuff that’s happening locally.  Unstrap yourself from all your cables, phones, laptops, TVs, put on a big hat and coat, and go enjoy it!  You couldn’t beat it with a big stick!

I’ve blogged before about the difference in customer service mindset between ourselves and our American cousins, coming out in favour of yankee doodle dandy every time.  In a later blog, I speculated that a cause of this difference in customer care lies in our European reliance on a welfare system that leads to the buck-passing, couldn’t-care-less approach we encounter daily.  No intrinsic motivation, you see.

Well, it seems I may have been on to something.

BBC correspondent Emma Jane Kirby has discovered that in Paris, the customer is not always right.  Why?

“The revolution of 1789 has burned the notion of equality deep into the French psyche and a proud Parisian finds it abhorrently degrading to act subserviently… The strict code of manners in Paris is a deliberate class-leveller.”

In other words, their obvious lack of any customer care attitude springs from a political source.  The theory is that of equality, in this case, between customer and service provider.  So far, so mundane.  Of course the relationship is one of economic equality – the customer agrees to exchange money for goods or services that is deemed of equal value to their worth.  If the exchange is judged unequal, the customer can walk away to get a more equitable deal elsewhere.

In this case, the practice is different.  This is no equality or mutual respect between customer and provider.

Instead, the provider assumes a state of superiority over the customer, an attitude of “scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt and any thing that” the French might fancy.  Again, why?

France is a socialist state.  By equality they mean redistribution.  Economic exchange is a fundamentally dirty transition.  If one must engage in it, then it is best to do so with a bad conscience and an air of disdain.

Ideas have consequences.  If an organisation has a poor level of customer service, perhaps a workshop on ‘delighting the customer’ is not enough.  Maybe what they really need is a dose of capitalism to help them care.  In a free market economy, service is not a dirty word.

Only a thought.

P.S.  If you want to know how to play the French service game… and win, then read this article from The Guardian.  They would know, wouldn’t they.

Image credit: blogger’s own.

Recently I attended an FSB How to Get Paid on Time seminar and it got me thinking.  What do we do to ensure we get paid on time?  The following ideas provide a great place to start:

• Do you have written Terms and Conditions?  Are they explained in detail to each new customer, or posted out with every invoice and bill?  Better still, are they listed on your website?  Why not?
• Be upfront.  State Terms and Conditions at the start of any large negotiation or project.  Make it clear and obvious.  If a new client can’t agree to them, it may be time to part the ways.  Or, it may be time to negotiate.
• Go with your gut.   If someone seems like too much trouble, they probably are.  This goes doubly for freelancers out there.  You really can’t afford to get stuck working with a client for a few months who you knew would probably be “problematic”.

• Do less work for those who consistently pay late.  You may think you have to suffer this at the beginning of running your business.  However, you have to weigh up whether late income is worth more than the stress and hassle of getting it in.  And, think whether that time and effort may not be better spent on other customers.  Eventually, you will be able to drop these customers altogether.
• Threaten promise not to turn up, if you’re delivering goods or services, following an unpaid invoice from a previous order.  Insist on payment on delivery, otherwise, tell your delivery drivers to come right back to the warehouse.
• Are you delaying getting paid on time?  When do you post invoices?  For example, if your Terms are 30 days from the date of the invoice, why does the invoice not get posted (first class) on the day of delivery?  Delaying this until you’re next organising the accounts wastes valuable cash-flow time.
• Avoid becoming the hidden baddie in your own story of woe!  Prepare invoices and bills in advance, and schedule credit control calls or visits – you will have no excuse to forget, if they are written in your schedule.  Make this a step in your “dealing with a new purchase” procedures.

I hope these tips will help out, especially for those just starting out.  It’s been something I’ve been asked about several times recently and thought I’d put it all down in a quick post.

Image credit: Neubie.