This article is inspired by a recent Twitter post, in which one disgruntled customer put a cost to her yearly patronage of one restaurant whose service had left a bad taste (pardon the pun) in her mouth.
A few years ago, I walked into a popular fast food chain in Montego Bay and right into the midst of a loud dispute between a customer and an employee. Apparently there were two sandwiches on the menu which were almost the same expect for one small detail – one came with bacon and the other didn’t. From what I could glean of the dispute, the customer had mistakenly ordered the bacon sandwich but did not eat pork.
Now, she was upset that she had been given a pork sandwich, an the employee was pointing out that the original mistake was hers, thereby refusing to replace the sandwich with the one she wanted. The way the restaurant chose to handle the situation, insisting that there was nothing they could do to turn this into a positive experience for this customer, might have cost them a lot more than a lousy sandwich.
Let’s say the average sandwich combo costs $700 (which is just under US$8). If you treat yourself once a week, that amounts to $2,800/month or $33,600 (US$314) a year. If she has at least one child and usually treats that child then the cost would double. And if she convinces at least one friend to boycott the chain? You get the picture.
It’s a shame that some companies, particularly restaurant chains/franchises can’t make the connection between the experience of one customer and their bottomline. Or how this public squat affects the buying behavior of bystanders like myself; and the subsequent retelling of this story. What if she only had enough money to purchase one sandwich, which through an honest mistake turned out to be the wrong one? By the way, I too ordered the wrong item at the same restaurant on at least one occasion due to their messed up menu board, which thankfully they’ve now simplified.
I haven’t boycotted the company, but I definitely changed my buying behavior – supporting them about once every other month instead of weekly like I used to. I won’t say that this incident was the main deciding factor behind my decision, but the fact that the company policy came before the customer’s needs that day has never been forgotten by me. And that customer service is woefully lacking in the fast food industry generally is one headache I’d rather avoid.
When customers display their dissatisfaction in the presence of other customers, then employees must be mindful that the way the dispute is handled is also being observed. Turning a negative experience around is a customer service skill few businesses practice, but it can definitely result in higher rates of customer satisfaction.