This one gets to me almost as much as employees that are cold and half asleep. I’m talking about orders that take a long time to arrive, and when they do, they’re not what they should be.
If you’re all about providing a very slow experience, that’s fine, but be consistent in doing it. And, make sure people expect that. Have a sign inside that let’s them know that orders take long here, but it’s because you make everything fresh or because you take more time with each customer, etc. Now back to what really bothers me.
Here’s an example that I still think about years later…
I was living in Asia at the time and came back to Vancouver, Canada to visit my family. I went out with two of my cousins and a friend to a well-known burger joint. The food is great. The view of the mountains is amazing (especially from the patio).
But when we ordered our drinks they took about 10 minutes to bring them to us (that might not sound like a long time, but when you want something to quench your thirst, it sure is). I thought maybe they were just really busy. I looked around and saw our hostess standing and talking to another hostess. Was the bartender busy? Nope, the drinks were sitting at the bar…When she finally brought our beers over, the foam was nearly gone. No “sorry for the delay”, no nothing. This was her approach to treating her customers ‘well’.
Now, the above example may seem like nothing to fuss about. But I’m not the only one that enjoys a fresh beer. It’s the same with food or having to wait to get a box from the back of the warehouse or at the dentist’s or doctors…nobody likes to be kept waiting.
Customers want to see that your employees are doing their best to get their order to them as quickly as possible. If you really are totally swamped, fine, but let your customers know…don’t disappoint them.
From a sales perspective, if I would have been brought my first drink more quickly, maybe I would have ordered a second. Maybe all of us would have. That’s an extra $5 to $20 sale.
A $20 increase per sale multiplied by just 25% (or 50 customers) out of a modest 200 customers a day…and they would make an extra $1,000 a day. That’s $365,000 dollars or so a year. Just like that.
No extra workers or wages needed. That’s pure profit.
The drink example was due to a weak system. Maybe there was only one bartender you say? Then teach servers how to pour a drink, or get another bartender. But don’t allow your staff to stand around while your customers are waiting for what they want…that doesn’t make your customers happy.
The result was an unhappy customer. One that would likely tell many others about the poor experience (hey, I’m doing that right now).
Look around at your business. Are there certain areas that can be made more efficient? The best way to do this is to make a list of each point of contact you have with your customer and check to see if any areas are weak. If they are, figure out why they are and how you can strengthen them.
Let’s take the example of a Dry-Cleaning business:
- Customer walks in off the street to inquire about prices
- Customer calls to inquire about prices
- Customer drops off clothes for dry cleaning
- Look over clothes
- Explain services and provide suggestions
- Take order and customer information
- Call customer to announce pick-up is ready
- Customer comes for pick-up
- Customer provides their order stub
- Find customer clothing
- Give customer clothing article
- Charge for payment
- Thank customer
- Follow up with customer
To work through the above example you would sit down with your employees and go through each point of contact you have with your customer and look for ways to improve service and efficiency in each.
Leave a comment ▶
RSS Feed