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Can Restaurants Handle the Truth?
Author: Peggy Entrop
March 17, 2009
An article caught my eye in this week’s Crain’s Chicago Business discussing how certain legislation may require restaurants to put calorie counts for their food on menus. You can read the full article here.
You may be able to guess why some restaurants are concerned. The article reads, “At least one recent study has shown that calorie counts can change consumer behavior, meaning customers might opt for the grilled chicken over the Big Mac or cut back on fast-food trips altogether.”
There is much debate over whether this is a good idea or not, but the thought occurred to me. If customers are aware of what they are actually buying, will they make a different choice? Could I go as far as saying, “If we can’t deceive our customers, they won’t buy from us?”
In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in transparency about calorie content. I can easily find calorie counts for any major restaurant online. And, honestly, it really hasn’t changed my food choices. I wonder, though, if it has encouraged restaurateurs to be more focused on what their customers want, and seek out economically feasible ways to give them what they want.
That seems like a step in the right direction to me.
Jewel-Osco, Chase and Employee Indifference
Author: Peggy Entrop
February 3, 2009
What happens when you have a great website, great ads, but a terrible in-person, face-to-face customer experience?
That’s a dumb question, right?
Every few weeks, my coworker and I run to the grocery store to stock our office kitchen. We usually spend a couple of hundred dollars. We started doing this after a really fantastic new Jewel-Osco grocery store opened up right up the street.
The new grocery store is gigantic. It’s clean. It has an amazing selection. And, it has the grumpiest, meanest, rudest cashiers known to man. I learned awhile ago that I’m much better off going to the self-check-out, because then I won’t have to deal with the cashiers.
Guess what will happen when another option for getting our groceries presents itself?
That’s a dumb question, too.
Perhaps no-one needs customer loyalty more than banks right now. So, what are banks doing to win our trust and secure our loyalty?
A co-worker relayed this story of her recent trip to a Chase branch:
There was nowhere to sign in or anyone to direct me, so I walked up to teller. After a few minutes, I was asked if I needed help, but when I answered “Yes,” the lady answered a phone, and apparently forgot she had already asked me if I needed help, because a few moments later, she asked me once more.
She then went into the banker’s cubicle for a couple minutes, came back out and walked right past me, obviously forgetting what she went in for.
Finally, she saw that I was still waiting and went back into the banker’s cubicle. When she came out she told me that he would be with me shortly and walked away.
I waited in the seating area as another customer came in to see a banker. When the lady came back only two minutes later and saw me in the sitting area, she asked if I had been seen yet! I said no-by now very annoyed.
When I finally saw the banker, I was rushed out of the banker’s cubicle so that he could go to lunch.
I decided to never go to that Chase location again.
What really bothers us as customers more than employee indifference? What are businesses doing to engage and empower their employees?
Follow Peggy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/entrop
McDonald’s Converts
Author: Peggy Entrop
January 12, 2009
I was just reading this great article in the New York Times business section about how McDonald’s is making a big comeback. What stood out to me is how they have shifted their focus from “being the world’s best quick-service restaurant” to being “our customers’ favorite place and way to eat.”
In changing the food they serve and they way they serve it, they have won back millions of “McDonald’s Converts.” And, as I read the article, I realized… I’M A MCDONALD’S CONVERT!
I hadn’t set foot in a McDonald’s in probably 10 years until they started offering iced coffee for a fraction of the price of Starbucks. One day, I tried it, and it was really good.
Also, the store itself seemed less, how do I put this, disgusting than I remember it being. It was clean and colorful, and the staff was friendly. Overall, a not-too-shabby experience. That, plus the cost difference, was enough to change my ritual from grabbing-a-quick-Starbucks to grabbing-a-quick-McDonalds.
I guess the lesson is: never stop trying to reach your customers. If the way you are reaching them isn’t working, try shifting your focus. McDonalds found out what was missing from their experience, then they adapted to fit that need. Any question about whether it worked? Check out their profits!
Sincerity goes a long way in the Customer Experience
Author: Peggy Entrop
September 30, 2008
Jason Dabrowski is a friend of Vox, Inc. He sent us this great example of how one Chicago Restaurant won his trust.
Jason writes:
A few weeks ago, on a Friday, my partner and I went to take care of my brother’s dog. No big deal, just stopping in to feed him and take him for a walk. Costello is in a crate most of the day while my brother and his girlfriend are at work. This particular Friday night, neither of them was going to be home until the next morning. So rather than deal with a mess and very, very unhappy dog, they asked us to stop in and take care of the pooch.
After feeding the dog and taking him for a nice long walk we went in search of food. We were very hungry and ended up at his place called Caliente. Rockwell and Fullerton, I believe. From outside it looked pretty casual and inexpensive. When we sat down we quickly learned that it was casual but not cheap! Both of us starving, we decided to stay. We got a little impatient because it had been a few minutes and nobody had come by to take our order. We have a rule, if we have to wait ten minutes, we walk. We’ve had that happen at a restaurant, where we’re seated and end up sitting for more than ten minutes with no water and no menus. About 30 seconds after I started the timer on my phone the waiter came to take our order. I was worried the price wouldn’t match the food quality but I was too hungry to worry about that. We got an appetizer, and two entree’s, not to big a deal, but still more than we wanted to spend.
A few minutes later the hostess showed up. She placed a plate of homemade guacamole and homemade large, round chips on our table and said, “Here is some complementary guacamole while you wait for your food.” According to the menu she just handed us $8 worth of food, for free! It was very good, well worth the price, but a little too spicy for me to finish it off. Our appetizer came before we had given up on the guacamole, and our entrees seem to arrive before we finished the appetizer. The waiter apologized for the wait, and the hostess apologized again when she brought us our check.
The food was wonderful, and even though it was expensive, we agreed that it was certainly worth the price. It’s funny, I was getting annoyed and disgruntled while waiting to order, but as soon as that delicious yet spicy guacamole arrived I forgot about being annoyed and really didn’t pay too much attention to how long it took to get our food and the check. The apologies were both unexpected and sincere, they seemed genuinely embarrassed.
It could’ve been a horrible experience, but my partner and I would love to go again and plan on recommending Caliente to my brother and his girlfriend and anyone else who wants a tasty dinner at a restaurant that cares about its clients. All they did was give us something for free that we weren’t expecting, apologized for the inconvenience, and sealed the deal with tasty food! We were so surprised by the free guacamole that the wait for everything else didn’t even register. We weren’t looking at our clocks, just marveling at how much these people sincerely wanted to give us a good dining experience with them, despite being short staffed.
If you have had similar experiences, leave a comment with your story!
Rite or Wrong Service?
Author: Jack Borland
November 7, 2006
Rite Aid, one of the nation’s leading drugstore chains, was recently charged with selling expired merchandise and overcharging for products by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.
Rite Aid says that the errors were caused by stores not adhering to standard policies and practices. Rite Aid seems to be a classic example of a company where the brand promise "With us, it’s personal" is viewed as just a marketing slogan, rather than as a statement to be lived by every employee.
It’s a reasonable assumption that Rite Aid doesn’t have a corporate strategy to intentionally overcharge or sell expired products. However, for consumers, intent doesn’t need to be an issue. The fact is that the company doesn’t care enough to:
- Either see to it that responsible business practices are adhered to,
- Or (in a more proactive and extensive effort) expend resources to actively engage every employee in living up to its brand promise.
This problem is made worse by the fact that Rite Aid had previously entered into consent orders against precisely these sorts of practices. While Rite Aid was spending money on marketing to bring people into the stores, they weren’t spending on the basic training and processes to ensure a reasonable (not even exceptional) in-store experience.
Is Rite Aid going to feel some pain over this? I’ve got to believe so. If I were a consumer, I wouldn’t be shopping there. Would you?
Don’t Put Your Customer to Work
Author: Sarah Beckley
September 6, 2006
When independent shops are being squeezed out by large chains every day, excellent customer service can become a point of distinction. So I was surprised yesterday when I overheard the following conversation while I was standing in the local independent coffee shop waiting for my sandwich.
A staffer picked up the phone and clearly identified the cafe and himself, which was a good start. Then he listened for a moment.
"Oh, well, I’m not familiar with the catering menu. You should call back in half an hour and talk to Bob," he said, while looking at the clock. More silence.
"Bob… Bob," he repeated the name several times and then hung up the phone with a sigh. Clearly, this was not the perfect ending to the conversation.
What are the chances that the customer called back? I know I wouldn’t have after such a brush off. They clearly don’t need or want my business. And you should never make more work for the customer. It is the company’s job to create a seamless transaction.
If the shop prioritized customer service (or training), the employee would have taken down the customer’s name, number, the order, and then made sure Bob followed up to confirm the details.
In that scenario, the customer would have been happy to get a confirmation call and have their order completed, the cafe would have had a nice catering job and everyone would have been happy.
Brand Stormtroopers
Author: Aaron Huston
June 22, 2006
The World Cup is in the news and so are the “Brand Fascists”. FIFA, the international organization overseeing the world cup, is aggressively protecting its sponsor’s brands. So aggressive are they that over a thousand members of the Dutch contingent watched one of their latest matches in their underwear because of a non-sponsor beer logo on their lederhosen.
No joke! A Dutch beer, Bavaria, produced these patriotic orange shorts in a marketing push in the run up to the world cup. On June 16th, as Dutch fans lined up for the Ivory Coast match, FIFA ordered ticket holders in the queue to throw their shorts away before entering the stadium.
I really wonder if Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser marketing team (Bud being the official beer sponsor) was closely in the loop on the FIFA decision. If they were, then that’s a really bad call on their part. If not, they should be complaining as loudly as the fans to try to set things right.
If you’re not providing the event free to the public, sponsorship should only mean prominent name placement, not a ban on competing messages. The repercussions of being perceived to be “brand fascists” must far outweigh any effort to stop brand dilution. The thing to remember is that brand expressions by the attendees wearing/carrying/consuming competing products are usually an indication of personal preference, and not a systematic attack by another brand.
When you start tangling with restricting attendee preference expressions, you’re in essence trying to dictate personal behavior - which wasn’t the core reason you sponsored the event in the first place. Even if another brand has been smart enough to piggy-back their message on something that an attendee might wear, the downside of negative customer experience isn’t worth it.
So, be a “brand fascist”, and be remembered sharply negatively as such by the people both directly and indirectly touched by your policies. That’s in sharp contrast to the soft, positive message you were trying to achieve by the sponsorship.
A Self-Serving Customer?
Author: Kathleen Gilmartin
June 2, 2006
Recently, Jack Borland wrote about The new McStarbucks experience?. Fast food restaurants are looking to improve their decor to match that of Starbucks or Panera and improve the customer experience. I agree this would be a step in the right direction for the fast-food world, but what about other changes?
In the article, Ready to be self-served?, John Schmeltzer discusses how gas stations, airlines, and grocery stores all have self-service options. He asks whether customers are ready for self-serve kiosks in the fast-food industry. Would customers prefer to serve themselves? Devin Green, chief executive of ESP Systems LLC, which is deploying a system for alerting a restaurant’s staff that a patron needs service, does not agree. He thinks "The country is not quite ready for self-serve. This [the restaurant industry] is a people business. People go to a restaurant to be served." But do we? Particularly at a fast-food restaurant. Would service be better if we directed it or do we prefer someone else to do the serving?
The new McStarbucks experience?
Author: Jack Borland
June 1, 2006
Burger King, Wendy’s and McDonald’s have all announced that they are reassessing their standard décor. Stores are considering replacing the traditional hard plactic swivel chairs with comfortable seating, and adding real wood, non-fluorescent lighting, wi-fi service, and more subdued color schemes. McDonald’s in particular has taken aim at the Starbucks clientele by adding premium coffee selections to its menu, and the changes to the ambience go hand-in-hand with that focus.
The traditional fast food chains have typically had furnishings and décor designed to move customers in and out quickly. The potential downside for the changes? If people linger longer, then there’ll be less seating available, possible impacting counter sales. With the predominance of the drive through though, counter service now accounts for only 30 to 40% of the typical store’s sales – so I don’t see that as a big problem for most locations.
Also, if you think about it, a lot of the chain locations have already been offering some incentives to get you to sit and stay, like a children’s play area. In fact one of the malls near my home added a similar area when they found themselves with dead space due to an anchor store renovation.
What’s the upside? It’s probably not that people will spend more on a per visit basis, but rather that they’ll be more likely to frequent the locations. Given the competition between the traditional fast-food chains, and the coffee shop and sandwich chains, it’s inevitable that good ideas for improving the customer experience will be studied and copied.
I haven’t seen any of these new renovations, but I’m hopeful they’ll start showing up in the Chicago suburbs market where I live and work. As someone who spends one to two hours every day in places like Starbucks, I’m always on the lookout for another pleasant place to spend time (and money).
Customer Experience - Who Gets It?
Author: Jack Borland
March 13, 2006
I was at a cocktail party last week and met a number of people, from an outsource HR firm rep, to an IT consultant, to a custom wood furniture craftsman. The food was excellent, the venue (an art gallery) was stimulating, and overall I had a good time.
As usual in these events, everyone asked each other what their companies did. Again, as usual, when I explained that I helped organizations to improve their customer experience, I got a lot of blank stares. Interestingly, in almost every group, immediately after the blank stares, one person piped up with “Oh yeah, we do that!” and he or she proceeded to explain a practical example that dovetailed nicely with Vox’s work.
While a few of the largest companies have adopted customer-centric philosophies, I’m starting to see that a lot of smaller firms are waking up to the fact the “the customer comes first” is not an outmoded cliché. For instance, I met a guy who launched an executive assistant staffing firm. He attributes his company’s success to their focus on providing the best, most pleasant experience possible to their applicants.
When the time came to add headcount due to growth, he decided to hire a concierge for applicants rather than to just add another recruiter. The result? He’s getting more high-quality applicants, and even when they wind up being placed by another firm, they’re more likely to come back to his firm for their next job placement. And by developing a pool of talented, high-quality personnel, his ultimate clients, C level executives, keep coming back to him when they need quality personnel.
Ultimately, your best assets, and the only assets that don’t depreciate over time are people, either your employees or your customers. Focusing on providing a superior experience will win you longer, more profitable relationships with both. People have known this for a long time. The challenge is figuring out how to change organizations to do this consistently. That takes a special kind of mind-set.
