Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

Part 2: 5 Business Lessons Learned From Bad Customer Service

In my last post, I described an example of a very bad customer service experience my wife and I experienced just over a week ago at the Hard Rock Cafe in Atlantic City. I'm happy to report that the assistant manager responded promptly to my complaint on the Hard Rock Facebook Wall and followed it up with a phone call. 

In today's world where most businesses tend to make excuses or ignore their customers,  I'm pleased to say at least one Hard Rock Cafe manager differentiated himself.  This incident offers many important customer service skill lessons for business.  Here are what I believe are the top 5 lessons learned.  What do you think?

1. It’s the experience, stupid.  Guests will tolerate even mediocre food if the experience is good.  We have many choices when we dine out but find ourselves choosing just a few.  What differentiates our favorites from the rest aren’t cheap food and drink. It’s the comfortable feeling we get when we’re greeting as “family” or “special guests” every time we visit.  Likewise, we’ve never returned to restaurants that had outstanding cuisine but lousy service. In this case, the manager ignored our experience and put her attitude and work operations ahead of visitor safety and comfort. 

2. Be proactive.  Employees should be on the lookout for dangers and risks for their guests.  Although my wife’s purse wasn’t in the open, it wasn’t secure either. Some might argue that it’s not the restaurant’s obligation to ensure that guests protect their personal belongings.  But it should be their responsibility to ensure our visit is uneventful, if not enjoyable.  We’ve been guests in other restaurants where the wait staff or host scanned the floor, then stopped by the table to recommend that we hide our personal belongings and remove the “easy target” sign from their backs.  It’s not a perfect system or a guarantee but we always appreciated that the restaurant was looking out for us and creating a safe environment  - even for just a few minutes. 

3. Seize the moment.  Don’t wait for a customer to complain.  For me this one’s a no-brainer.  What could have turned into a major inconvenience and ruined weekend worked out thanks to the observant guest at the next table.  For just a moment, he was a “hero.”  The Hard Rock Café staff blew one of those rare opportunities to recognize a guest for going above and beyond.  The good will and positive press generated by such a moment would have far exceeded any disruption to a manager’s busy schedule or loss of a few dollars by comping their meal.  Instead the “hero” walked out quietly, and we left angry and unhappy…with a negative story to tell.

4. Don’t underestimate the power of social media.  To paraphrase, "Hell hath no fury like an upset customer scorned." In the past, it was said that a person would tell 3 other people about a good customer service experience…and 13 about a bad one. Today, you can add a few zero’s to the bad story scenario.  In the past, I might have written a letter to the General Manager or CEO of Hard Rock Café.  Today, all I needed to do was post my complaint to a social networking site like Facebook and user-review site like Yelp. Instead of 13 people hearing about the bad experience, my potential audience reached hundreds of millions with a few keystrokes. What’s worse is that what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet.  A bad experience posted on the Internet doesn’t go away after it’s resolved, but lingers on the Internet ad infinitum. Don't ignore this new reality.  Thanks to social media, the company no longer controls the brand; customers do.

5. To err is human, to recover divine.  An apology is a good way to have the last word (Author Unknown).  One of the most frequent questions I get when speaking to business people about social media is “what should we do about negative comments posted on our blog or social networking site.” My response: thank them!  A study of why customers switch companies revealed that only 4 percent of dissatisfied customers complain. For every complaint, 26 more customers were unhappy.  Worse than that, from 65 to 90 percent of the unhappy but non-complaining customers would never buy from the company again. Social media can be a very valuable customer service recovery strategy.  A study for Travelers Insurance a few years ago showed that persuading people to complain could be the best business move a company could make.  While only 9 percent of the non-complainers would buy from that company again, 82 percent would buy again if they complained AND the company resolved the problem.  Even for customers who did complain but whose problem wasn’t resolved, more than 50 percent were willing to give the company a second chance.

Good customer service starts with attitude. All the training in the world won’t save an employee with a bad attitude.  And a positive service attitude can’t be trained.  But a good customer service strategy can turn a good employee with a positive attitude into a great one and maybe – just maybe – help a company successfully recover and retain a customer from a bad service experience.

Hard Rock’s Customer Service Crumbles

In an economic time when a customer is your most valuable asset, bad customer service is like a cancer.  If a manager at the Hard Rock Café in Atlantic City is representative of the health of that business, then that restaurant’s prognosis is terminal. (But thanks to the intervention of the assistant manager Todd following my post on Hard Rock's Facebook Wall, it looks like the restaurant might be on road to customer service recovery.  More on that in a future post.)

During our dinner this past Saturday, my wife’s purse was stolen…or at least that’s what one restaurant guest attempted to do. Thanks to a very observant and quick thinking young man at the next table, my wife’s purse was retrieved intact.

The tables were very close together.  A middle age couple apparently squeezed between the tables.  We didn’t think anything about it because customers and wait staff were doing it all the time. But the would-be thief managed to kick the purse out into a clear spot where she could bend over to pick it up.   Fortunately the young man at the next table observed the woman carrying two purses.  He bent over and asked my wife if she had had a purse on the floor.  When she noticed it was missing, the young man in his late 30s or early 40s ran after the woman.  My wife followed and I followed her.

Our friends at the table notified the waitress, who in turn notified the manager.  The manager supposedly called security and police but neither ever showed up.  After a short run down the boardwalk, we confronted the woman who acted like she didn’t know she was carrying this second purse.  Of course, my wife’s purse looked like a suitcase compared to the other one she was holding so an innocent mistake wasn’t likely.  She handed the purse back with all the contents intact but still no police or security.  She and her friend took off and we returned to the restaurant.

Never did security or the police or the manager ever come to our table to follow-up or apologize for the inconvenience.  Worse, no one from the restaurant even thanked the young man.   We notified the waitress that we wanted to pick up the couple’s check.  She seemed surprised we would offer to do that.  I’ll notch it up to youth and lack of experience in these matters, but one might think that a staff with good customer service skills and training might report that to the manager and suggest the restaurant might want to do something for their customer “hero.”  But no, they just ignored it.

Following the return of the purse, we resumed our dinner and for the next 45 minutes waited for security or the manager to visit.  Nothing, nada, not a peep.  Before leaving the restaurant, we asked to speak with the manager. She told us that “we handled the situation well and thought we wanted to keep it private.”  Yea, right.  When we told her that we paid for the guests’ dinner who chased down the thief, she told us, “she would have offered to pay for their drinks, but not their dinner.”  Of course, she did neither and didn’t bother to reimburse us either.

In the next post early next week, I'll highlight a few of the lessons a business like Hard Rock Cafe can learn from our customer service experience. But before you read them, what advice or comments would you share?

Royal Wedding Plans Reflect Gen X Values

The long awaited engagement of Kate Middleton to Prince William has finally been announced.  The press has been waiting 30 years to cover another royal wedding.  Daily updates on what is happening with the newly engaged couple are the buzz one traditional and social media.

Middleton and Prince William have been dating on and off for the last 8 years so it is not completely unexpected.  Similarities are already being drawn between their relationship and that of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.  Specifically, Kate is a commoner and may therefore not be as experienced as Prince William in what it means to be a royal.   The expectations and responsibilities associated with this royal position exceed the ability of many people. 

According to Prince William, the long engagement allowed both of them to ponder what they were getting into. That’s not unlike many other couples in Generation X who have postponed matrimony. It’s also not unlike what many employers are discovering about managing Generation X. 
While Baby Boomers couldn’t wait to get a title, Generation X and Generation Y are often reluctant to climb the career ladder at the expense of personal and family life.  In addition the allure of the title often exceeds the ability of the manager to manage the pressures and fulfill the expectations.  

For Middleton, it will be a very different thing to be a princess with the very real possibility of becoming the queen than the girlfriend of a prince. For many managers promoted prematurely or reluctantly, the kiss of the prince often ends up turning them into frogs.

Many employers see the promotion as the reward for a job well done.  The recession has caused many organizations to question that rationale.  Young generations are also questioning the lure and promise of a management position.  For them, it’s just not worth the hassle. But to grow the business and to replace retiring baby boomers, employers need skilled managers.  Not only is the skill gap widening but many of the qualified successors are reluctant to step up and into management roles. 

This double whammy poses an imminent threat and troubling problem for business going forward. 

Workaholism May Be Killing You

Workaholism may be killing you.  At least that’s what several studies are finding – that long term dangers accompany an addiction to work. 

A recent post on the Term Life Insurance Blog provided a nice graphic citing that 1 in 31 Americans (10 million) worked 60+ hours a week last year.  That’s 200 more hours per person worked compared to 1970.  Interestingly enough, when compared with other countries, the United States at an average of 1,782 hours per person per year no longer sits atop the worldwide perch of hard workers.  In fact workers in 8 other countries work more hours than workers in the United States.

Many employees and bosses might be feeling like the workaholic shoe fits their life.  The graphic includes some handy diagnostic tips to know if you’re in danger.  You are a workaholic if:

1. Working at home has become routine.
2. You feel bored and unproductive if you are not working.
3. Work and clients have access to you 24/7 and it interferes with life.
4. You think you are the best person for the job and refuse to delegate.
5. You are constantly talking about work.
6. Your workday doesn’t stop when everyone else goes home.

Did you pass…or fail?  Are you at risk?  Don’t fret – help is just 12 steps away.  Apparently there is now a 12-step program called Workaholics Anonymous to help individuals cope with this addiction.

What do you think? Productivity reports seem to infer we’re working smarter and not harder. Is that true or have we just pushed fewer workers to the brink of workaholism?  Or is workaholism just another syndrome concocted by a group of slackers and entitled workers who feel that commitment and personal satisfaction in a job sets a bad example?  Let’s hear from you … if can you spare a few minutes from your busy day.