Category Archives: food

November 20, 2015 · 11:57 am

Firing The Customer

This Foodie Friday, we have the tale of a restaurant that fired a customer. A regular customer ordered some takeout and asked that it be delivered. The delivery guy, who is autistic, had handed the customer the wrong order from his car (he went back and corrected it immediately). The customer called the restaurant, furious. and informed the owner that the driver was an idiot and strung out on drugs (neither of which was true). I’ll let the owner (via his Facebook post) tell you the rest:  

This driver has worked for us for two years. He is a seriously accomplished University student, has an amazingly inquisitive personality, a wicked sense of humor and one helluva work ethic! You would think, in the year 2015 the majority of the population would have learned or at least heard about autism. I understand that there is a large portion of our population that is content to remain uninformed and uneducated, but that doesn’t give them the right to take that ignorance and turn it into a foul-mouthed rant on two of my employees!

Therefore, we have fired this customer. That address, that name and phone number will be tagged with a DO NOT DELIVER DO NOT ACCEPT ORDER message.

Now, we talk a lot in this space about being 100% customer-focused and seeing the world through the consumer’s eyes.  There are times, however, when we need to fire a client or a customer, and clearly this is one of them.  When you have a client or a customer that does certain things, it’s really time to move on.  Such as?

When there is no longer trust between you.  Maybe you sense there is unethical stuff going on or maybe the communication has become irreparably damaged.  Time to move on.  When clients stop paying their bills on time and don’t have a good faith discussion about the reasons why and the plan to do so, it’s time to stop working.  Financial abuse is abuse nonetheless. Maybe they begin to demand more work (or additional products) for no additional money.  No, thank you.  Finally, as is the case above, maybe they’ve become abusive verbally on a regular basis.  Everyone gets mad once in a while and you can’t make a souffle without cracking an egg or two.  That doesn’t mean a customer gets to cross the line on a regular basis.

Being customer centric doesn’t mean being a punching bag.  No client or customer is worth demeaning yourself to retain.  You might lose a customer, but you’ll lose a headache in the process.

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November 13, 2015 · 12:48 pm

You Do It 226 Times A Day!

It’s Foodie Friday, so let’s think about food and business.  Actually, you’ve probably thought quite a bit about food already today.  I make that statement and am supported by research.  You see, way back in 2007, Brian Wansink and Jeffery Sobal of Cornell University asked 139 participants about the number of food-related decisions they thought they made every day.  The average answer, off the top of the subjects’ heads, was 14.  However, when the participants were asked to break down a typical day and to think about how many ‘when’, ‘what’, ‘how much’, ‘where’ and ‘who with’ decisions they made for a typical meal, snack and drink,  it showed the participants made an average of 226 food decisions a day, 59 of which related to what kind of food to eat.

I doubt any of you reading the screed today are in a business that’s thought about 226 times a day by your customers.  If you are, please share how you managed to get that level of engagement and passion.  But if you’re like most of us, the challenge is to increase whatever the number of times a day we’re considered by consumers.  If you’re a food brand, apparently you have a head start on the rest of us.  But what is it about food that prompts this level of thinking?

The obvious reply is that food is necessary for our survival.  We get hungry, but as the study shows, we don’t really make mindless decisions about food despite our hunger (although I’m not sure why most of us aren’t more aware of how many food decisions we do make each day).  How to drive hunger for your brand?  It’s through many of the ways we talk about here – being responsive, building loyalty, being transparent, focusing on the customer’s problems and your solution, and, most importantly, listening.

I suppose we could try to piggyback on the 226 by running food-related ads even if we’re not a food brand.  Trying your brand at this time of year to family and food is fairly commonplace.  I think, however, that we’re better served in the long-term by fostering the brand hunger through the means I mention above, each of which we’ve discussed many times here (and we’ll continue to do so).  Great dishes excite and delight the diner – so do great brands.  Does yours?

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November 6, 2015 · 11:09 am

Being There

Our Foodie Friday Fun this week revolves around a question that keeps getting asked in foodie circles: do you care if the chef is in the kitchen? Many of the top chefs in the country have multiple restaurants, and obviously they can’t be in each kitchen every night. Does it make a difference and, moreover, does it say anything to us about how we run our businesses?

Augustin Théodule Ribot: The cook and the cat

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my mind, it’s immaterial. The chef is responsible for the overall menu and for developing the recipes. Once that’s done, the chef needs to hire and train an Executive Chef or Chef de Cuisine, or Sous Chef to execute those recipes to the chef’s standards each and every time. From there, maintaining the standards (and changing the menu once in a while) is the main thing that should be required.

I think people get more upset when they know the namesake isn’t there in the restaurant business than in others. Surely they don’t think that the fashion designer is walking the factory floor as clothes are made. In music, have you ever heard a really good cover band? For example – The Dark Star Orchestra plays set lists from Grateful Dead shows and on many nights they play them better than The Dead did originally. They are executing the recipes to perfection, much as a well-trained brigade does.

What does this have to do with your business? Let’s use an example I hear a lot in consulting. A big time firm comes in to pitch a potential client with a top-tier crew of executives. Generally, there is no chance those people will be working on your business. They key question, then, is what sort of training and tenure do the people who will be handling your business have? Many Sous or Executive Chefs have been with the “name” chef for years. Many of these consultants are fresh out of school.

You see the same thing with ad agencies and in other sectors. My feeling doesn’t change from the kitchen – the “name” being there isn’t critical if, and only if, the staff has been properly trained and is constantly checked on maintaining standards. You’re not going to eat the chef; you’re going to eat his or her food. Your clients, partners, and customers are expecting your business’ “food” to taste the same no matter who prepares it.

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