Will One Bad Customer Service Act Hurt Your Business?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 8, 2012
Last week my wife and I decided to go to my favorite restaurant for dinner. It's my favorite restaurant not only because I like the food, but because the staff that works there has always been friendly and taken care of me like I'm someone special. I'm sure they do that for a lot of people but I like going to a place where they recognize me and treat me like a long lost friend.
  Eddy Van 3000 via Compfight |
On this particular visit we had someone taking care of us who didn't know me. She also didn't have much of a personality, and that lessened the experience for us a degree. Sure, she was efficient in doing her job, but sometimes efficiency isn't enough.
The thing is that when your business is service oriented, you need to put your best foot forward and you just might have to go the extra mile in how you communicate with others. Being friendly helps; showing a bit more enthusiasm helps even more. Customers like feeling special; goodness, we all like feeling special.
In this particular instance I wasn't sure what to do. I know the owners and I knew all the other waitstaff there, but my solutions weren't clear. Should I say something to someone? I really didn't know, so I kept it to myself. This is one of those times where you don't want to overstep your bounds, but at the same time you want to take care of someone you like. If I felt this way with how she gave service I know that the other customers probably felt the same thing. I know she spoke to others the same way because I could hear her talking to customers at the other tables around us.
What did I do? I enjoyed my wife's company and then when it was time to pay the bill, I paid the minimum amount towards the tip. I'm a big tipper usually so for me to only pay 15% is rare. In this case she did her job but didn't do anything special, didn't engage with us at all. If I was a new customer I might not go back, even though the food was good.
How would you have handled something like this? Would you write it off to personality differences, or would you warn the owners of the company of a potential failing in their usual great customer service processes?
Given that it sounds like you got “adequate” service, not “bad” service – and given that it only paled in comparison to what you describe as fairly extraordinary, attentive service, I’d be inclined to chalk it up to the fact that the normally excellent service has raised your expectations to a high level that may not always be met.
It’s a tough call, and I’d say you handled it right. As a restaurant owner, I’d want to know – any loss of business hurts me. But as a customer, I’d be concerned that instead of better coaching and training and an opportunity to improve, this server might simply get fired. Is that fair? Was the service so bad you’d wish that on another human being, in this economy, simply because they didn’t live up to the excellent service you normally get? Probably not, right?
I like to fill out survey cards for extraordinary service so that managers and owner’s know who’s doing it right, and specifically WHAT they’re doing to delight customers. If I have a particularly ROTTEN experience, I’ll sometimes tell the manager in person or call the 800-number. I’ve done that at fast food restaurants, and I usually try to give balanced critique, if it’s at all possible to point out anything they’ve done well, too.
Holly, I have to admit it’s rare that I’ve filled out any of those cards. Only if I’ve been particularly irked will I fill one out; otherwise, if I’m pleased I tip very well, knowing it can be a tough job sometimes. I have to say that in its own way it’s affected me because Friday night I had many choices of where to go to dinner for a particular meal and my favorite restaurant didn’t even come into my mind as a choice because in my mind I worried I might get that same woman again. And that’s a shame but it’s the truth.
I also have favorite places and usually I build friendship with staff quite easy. On the tips, I would not react and will leave the usual tip, however my wife get mad much easier than me and for sure she will be really frustrated if I leave much money. Customer service is very important for any business, no matter what niche.
The girl simply could have been having a bad day. When I worked at Roy Rogers and then the bar down the shore, it wasn’t pleasant all the time dealing with the customers either.
And it didn’t matter what my demeanor was at the time. Customer service is a very difficult job. More times than not I’ve had compliments and been told I’m the nicest person they’ve dealt with the whole week and it’s been a pleasure helping me. And this is when I was crabby but I “never” take it out on them.
At the end of the day, maybe your girl there, simply had a bad day and it had nothing to do with you.
Hi Sue,
Turned out she wasn’t just having a bad day. I did end up talking to the owner after I’d talked to one of the other waitresses about it (I didn’t mention names since I didn’t know any, but expressed a feeling I’d had in wanting to avoid going to the restaurant for dinner in case I got her again). The owner came to talk to me and we talked about it for around 10 minutes or so. He said he was glad I mentioned it because other customers had mentioned it as well and he’d been trying to figure out ways to pump her up so that she’d show some personality, since it affects his business.
If I hadn’t decided to not visit the restaurant for dinner twice last week I might not have said anything, but if I’m now dodging my favorite restaurant, that just couldn’t continue.
The husband and I recently had a dinner made lousy by a server in a restaurant in Florida. He was not unpleasant, just very poorly trained.
(We, on the other hand, are very well trained by a daughter who worked for years as a server — so we are invariably kind and patient and so forth — and tip well).
I left 15% and a note on the check that I normally tip at least 20%. The husband thought the low tip was enough, no explanation was necessary.
But knowing that women have a frequently justified reputation as lousy tippers I wanted this young man to know I was miffed — not cheap.
If we were at our favorite restaurant at home, we would have had a quiet talk with the owner.
Meanwhile, the daughter is now working in a real estate related business that takes customer service seriously enough to hire “shoppers” that test the staff, sometimes by phone and sometimes in person.
The staff member is then told how they rated, and the information is used for further training if performance was sub-par. If performance was good, there are bonuses based on the level of excellence.
A good deal all around, methinks.
You did well Stephanie, and I’m glad your daughter’s got good customer service testing occurring. I did eventually tell the owner my story since it’s my favorite place to go and it turns out he already knew it, not because of me but because of her with other customers. Now, if someone wants to pay me to be a secret shopper at restaurants I’d jump on the opportunities. 🙂