So, what are the reasons to actually focus on customer experience? When does it pay off? (Not as often as you'd like. Amazon is a prime - pardon the pun - example that once you have enough of the market, you can let customer experience go downhill, because people value convenience over experience)
It's easy to say, not so easy to execute.
For example, I took my girlfriend to a nice hotel for our anniversary last year. When the hotel heard I was having an anniversary, they sent up a very nice hand written congratulatory card, a bottle of prosecco, and a selection of deserts on the house. That couldn't have taken them more than 15 minutes and cost them like 20 dollars, but it is something I will always remember; I will definitely return there in the future; and I recommend that hotel to any friends seeking a nice place to stay. That is great customer service.
At a more basic level, I was at a mid tier hotel a few weeks ago and somehow I didn't get the room upgrade I paid for. The management immediately refunded me the difference without complaint and gave me a few drink tickets to use at their bar as an apology. That is good customer service.
Contrast those to my experience at my former favorite steak house this year where for the last ten years I had been telling everyone to go. I went there for Valentine's day (had a reservation) and was told I had to wait 30 minutes for a table to open. While I was waiting, I saw multiple couples of the same size come in behind me and get seated. After the 30 minute wait, they tried to seat us at the loud and noisy bar. When I complained, they basically told me tough shit you get what you get. A reservation just guarantees you a table not a good one. I concluded that they were discriminating against us because we are younger than the average clientele there. Not only did I walk out and cost them my business, but I gave them a scathing Yelp review, and now shit talk them at every opportunity. I will never go back even though they were great every other time I was there, and instead always point friends to one of their main competitors when asked my opinion about local steak houses. I do this even though I know the competitor's food isn't as good. They could have given me the table I deserved; they could have comped some drinks or something; but no, they were right and I was wrong and so they lost a loyal customer instead.
By your own admission, you went to this steak house for 10 years and had liked it so much you encouraged others. I'd imagine you would've visited multiple times per year? So, let's say 20~30 visits total? All that time you were happy and raved about it, but one bad visit and not only did it sour your opinion to the point you won't return, but you also mentioned that you will disparage them whenever you can. At around 30 visits, 97% of your experience there was positive to the point of rave reviews.
I'm not having a go at you, I'm just using your story to highlight the difficulty in customer service and how fickle we all are as customers (myself included). I suppose that really just speaks more to our recency bias as humans as well.
As for your second example, I don't find this to be good customer service. You paid for an upgrade and didn't get it. It's not just about the incremental upgrade. You could have booked elsewhere and the upgrade was part of that decision. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole sometimes. They could have done better than a refund on the delta and some booze.
I'm not doubting that this is nice, but in a lot of businesses this could be all or most of their margin. You can be nice all day long but at the end of the day there has to be something left to run the business. There are plenty of ways to exceed customer expectations without running your business into the ground.
Yes I'm being tongue in cheek here, but try not to cut off your nose to spite your face.
V day and M day are the absolute worst times to go out for dinner, anywhere half decent is full and the kitchen is super stressed so they have reduced menus that are easier to cook (not possible with steak...). If you must go, you have to speak to the manager beforehand, tell them how important this is, remind them you come often, get a specific table, etc.
Credibility tends to take a hit when you do that. People interpret it not as the restaurant necessarily being bad as much as you having a bone to pick.
The software development world is plagued with the idea that developer productivity and happiness comes before all other considerations. Can you imagine a car manufacturer building something that get's 2 mpg but excusing it with "but it was quicker to build"? Yet we have electron.
Bad example, ever try fixing your own car and wondering why they made it so hard to access some parts? And then you try to replace some bit and break some smaller bit, like a plastic clip or something. And you can't buy the smaller bit anywhere. Most cars are built for ease of assembly, not ease of repair for example.
Meet the customers basic requirements and you compete on price first 9 times out of ten. Look at the airline industry, prices have steadily declined since deregulation and creature comforts right along with them. If Americans could buy standing room only tickets they would in droves.
Same with other giants / monopolies; this is why monopolies are bad for customers.
However, don't underestimate that the majority of people will often gravitate towards the most marketed thing, not the best designed (usable) thing.
I'm amazed at people's tolerance threshold nowadays for software that's mind-bogglingly difficult to use.
I find that technology has overall become less usable, less well-designed, more bloated, and more stuffed with eye-candy.
You don't get what you don't pay for.
Why didn't they just say so.
That being said, when writing engaging content, it's usually better to show, rather than just tell. That's also what they did here.
Last thing - they wanted to convey the message to as many people as possible. If the article was entitled "Put the concerns of the customer first before yours," virtually no one would read it (and no one on a site like HN, Twitter, or Facebook would click through to it).
The parking location is not all to blame, but at the time I remarked "the employees should really park out front to help it appears as though there are customers".
Obviously if your lot is frequently full this isn't an issue. This was in a rural location where most likely that never happens as it was a large lot, and not a business that would see surges of customers.
When a customer phones up to cancel, we do it immediately and make sure they know there are no hard feelings on our side. We ask if there was anything we could have done better, and tell them we'll still be here if they ever need us again. We get a significant number of customers return.
I have a terrible experience with your product, I don't want to repeat it. I'm going to try everything I can to keep my new coworkers from repeating that experience.
But there's something to be said for reversible decisions. Any decision that's cheap to change, you shouldn't make it expensive by putting a bunch of energy into. Just pick a fucking color for the shed. It's not important.
I hated your product but I can drop it like a rock, maybe I let my coworkers decide for themselves. And who knows, maybe you fixed the thing that drove me nuts, or this company has a different problem set that doesn't bump into the same things. Or maybe there's some poorly documented solution to the problem that people here know that we didn't.
I think it's totally valid in the sandwich shop example, where people will literally choose something else based on what they have to walk past to get to your door.
But for a professional service where you have an ongoing relationship worth potentially thousands of dollars per year, if someone is put off by a lack of front row parking, what other utterly trivial things are they going to find fault with? Those tend to be the clients that ask for the world and get it at a bargain and then still complain about the bill.
It's not that I'm not happy to go the extra mile for good clients, but there are definitely good clients and not good clients and creating a rule that you should always delight everyone all the time means you're going to waste a lot of time trying to delight people who complain about having to walk across the parking lot...
"At universities, the employees get better parking than the customers".
Although it wasn't true at my alma mater, where the only difference was that for staff and faculty the university would deduct the parking fees from your paycheck. For your convenience.
A particularly infuriating example of this is bookstores that demand you turn in your bag at the desk. I just walk out.
I want to believe. But seeing how painful it is to leave Facebook + iCloud, I find this hard to believe. It feels idealistic, but I wonder if the data says otherwise. People are lazy. It's unethical. But people are lazy.
But on the other hand, the NY Times makes it super hard to close down your account. I tell all my friends to choose other newspapers because of it.
I know this is just a throwaway comment in the article but my god does it bug me when parents use their children as an excuse for being late. Yes, kids are sometimes tough to get out the door but it's your fault that this somehow catches you by surprise every morning.
That is, early adopters may like to try out a new business, but a business with no customers, no cars etc can lead people to think it's unsuccessful/undesirable.
This is why early stage customers like to put the logos of customers on their home page.
Our business ran on weekends. Everyone else in our complex was closed on the weekends.
We started parking our cars up front because people were FAR more likely to come inside if it looked like other people were there.
Otherwise, we noticed that they would sometimes drive by slowly, try to peer in our windows, then drive off.
So, parking up-front for us was just marketing.
But I get it. Give the best spots to your customers if possible. The customer experience must be optimal. They aren't always right, but it can still feel good.
It's pretty cheap compared to the alternative.
Big things are expected and are exactly what you pay for. Neglect them and you'll lose all your business, because you're offering nothing.
But when costumers are comparing two companies (or small business, whatever), it's the small details that will make difference.
This makes me circle back again to the concept of "Minimum Viable Product." It's been said that as a startup, if you're not embarrassed when you ship v1, you waited too late. But what's often not looked at is "just how embarrassed is embarrassed enough?"
Going against the concept of launching an MVP is the idea of "you only get one chance to make a first impression." Which is why a number of founders started talking less about launching Minimum Viable Products, and more about launching Exceptional Viable Products.
Those few extra details can be crucial levers to determining your product's success with customers. Of course, the key is determining which of those key details are the ones you need to pay attention to, and which ones you can pass over for now.
Here's Rand Fishkin on MVP vs. EVP: https://qz.com/work/1277369/the-lean-startup-methodology-wil...
Yeah this always weighs upon my mind, to the point where sometimes I don't move ("perfect is the enemy of good", you can find a quote from all sides of a situation).
I think the ideal use case for a MVP is exposing it to a limited subset of users. These can be internal staff first, friends and family, or the noisy but helpful people who file a load of issues with you for another version/product. I think releasing a MVP to the whole world can be a big mistake, there are so many games out there I can't play them all. Some are fully realised in early access but others get a quick look then I never go back, even years later.
I've make significant lifestyle changes just because companies pissed me off enough to create a personal grudge. For example, I was an Xbox fanboy starting around 2005. Several years later I got a girlfriend and bought her an Xbox Live Gold subscription so she could play with me. It turned out not to be her thing, so I tried to cancel the service, except Microsoft made it an absolute nightmare. Reps bounced me from person to person, and several times I received a monthly bill despite the rep assuring me the account had been canceled. It filled me with such rage I canceled my own Live subscription, sold my Xbox 360, and swore off console gaming entirely. I'll be in the cold, cold ground before I give Microsoft another damn cent.
In most companies, that'd just be an error in a log file somewhere. They then followed up later to ask if things had been handled well. They also have one single, good value tariff with no option not to have green energy.
Principled, with A++ customer service and a competent mobile app, complete with a time line for switching and starting my account with them. I'm totally sold. They could be quite a lot more expensive than my existing supplier and I frankly wouldn't care given the whole experience so far.
This seems to be the cornerstone of Western etiquette. It can be different in Asia, where it may be more important to "save face" and let others also save face.
It is the case in Germany.
When I worked at a mall food court, I noticed something interesting: during slower periods, sometimes one restaurant would have a line while other restaurants would have no customers at all. And not always the same restaurant. I attributed it to customers seeing that one place had customers, then inferring that it must be open and it must be one of the better places to eat.
Popularity isn't a very reliable indicator of quality, but it's not totally invalid either. If a place is always deserted, it's probably not very good. If it's always busy, it's likely that people are willing to wait for a reason.
What I guess you could do as a business owner is wear plainclothes / take off the apron and have a coffee with your own staff. Mind you it'll look quite obvious in a lot of cases due to the staff wearing e.g. aprons or other accessories that infer they're staff.
But giving away some free coffee or something just to break the ice (or 'prime' as another commenter called it) will be a good strategy as well. It requires a bit of pushing which some people will find annoying but still, it'll be worth it.
Yeah, after trying the most popular Mexican restaurant in Gainesville, FL I can only agree.
Then later on I find it has gone out of business...
"Park in front in the morning, then move to the back before lunch, it'll make the place look busy"
From that week forward, there were often other customers when I stopped in for breakfast. Manager said breakfast business had easily doubled. I got a bunch of free subs out of that deal. ;)
There is a balance with small businesses of helping let people know you're in and available, and giving them prime parking.
You park within distance of the building and visible, but not directly outside if possible.
I've actually recieved calls about whether I'm open today, because my car is in the shop and thus the parking lot is vacant.
Something as simple as not parking right in front might not make a huge difference, but that mindset, compounded over months and years, will.
Also, psychology is weird... if there are a bunch of spots near to your business pick one reasonably close but always leave the best one for customers - if there are cars parked close to the entrance but the best spot is open then customers will walk in with a bit of a buzzing high from managing to nab the primo spot. Aaaand if there is a tree that drops crap during spring/fall, park under it so no customer gets stuck with sap on their car since that can colour their entire interaction.
Isn't psychology fun!
Now the line is a (punishment + holding cell) for dudes who have to buy their way out of the line by opting for bottle service.
Ideally for the club it moves just fast enough that the patrons in line don't give up and go somewhere else.
Lines are great for hype, but don't try to artificially create them at the cost of customer experience.
If there's tons of customers lining up each morning at opening, sure, park elsewhere. Otherwise the owner should definitely take the best space to show someone is there.
Empty parking lots are more common than full. Empty means there's nothing there.
That’s not been my experience in most major cities I’ve lived and traveled in.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067515/why-local-businesses-sho...
To that point people who complain are often the canary in the coal mine for larger issues. I am a big complainer. Typically in the end I get thanked for bringing things to a businesses attention. And I am a good customer. My largest 'reward' to date was a $5000 amount from a large german car manufacturer. They said 'we have never done this before'. What I said started out as a complaint. At first they were not really responsive. I finally brought home (successfully) that I was doing them a favor and that their dealer (a luxury car dealer) did not handle things the way they should have with a recent transaction.
I complain all the time at Whole Foods (where I spend a ton of money). Things just jump out at me. That said not everyone is me. Will say that I have owned a small business in the past. For every person that voiced a complaint there could be a hundred who don't open their mouth honestly. That's what I have found.
People think they shouldn't complain in a restaurant as another example. No the restaurant would rather have the complaint than you not returning or telling others. It's their chance to make things right and buy loyalty. Same story 'thank you for bringing this to our attention here is a $100 gift certificate'.
Not quite the same as actively delighting the customers.
This is one of the little things that add up and eventually cause customers to go elsewhere, consciously or not.
Maybe one day...
Like many other "nice to have" things, it's a matter of making it a priority. I'd had an hour commute when I worked in downtown Boston, and when I moved out to Silicon Valley, I told the realtor that was showing me around "No more than 15 minutes away from work." He was like "15 minutes? That means Mountain View, Palo Alto, or some parts of Sunnyvale. It'll cost you a lot." I said "I'm prepared to pay."
Would be nice if cities were built in a way that not just a select few high-earners could walk or bike to work, though. Right now, every person that moves into bike commuting distance of the major employers tends to displace someone who needs to move further away (oftentimes much further away); only way to avoid that is with more density.
Incidentally I built a site mapping homes for sale and rent over transit and bike routes (not roads) for Ireland, would it be useful for Scotland as well?
The idea that I would give my credit card digits (and CCV!) to a bartender for safe keeping is almost physically painful. I'm the one thinking they are the criminal (and not without justification given the rate of card fraud). I don't let restaurant servers walk away with my card now.
(And split bills should be automatic, they just don't do it because they get bigger tips that way.)
Where are the book stores that ask you to leave your bag? Except for teens maybe it seems weird.
So now, on top of being required to do the work of the bookstore employees you also lose the benefit of the doubt and are being treated as though you are a common thief.
Industry secret: lots of theft from bookstores is by employees.
Downside is that they probably then think Aha, well done Brian, stopped him in his tracks...
No amount of planning ahead can foresee every hiccup in getting a kiddo out the door...
I tend to agree the latter is probably at least somewhat on the parent.
Itchy/tight/lose/wrong-color pants/shirt/dresses/socks/shoes, not wanting to eat breakfast, decided they wanted a different breakfast after it's served, deciding they wanted to get the milk out of the fridge after telling you to do it, not wanting to brush their teeth/hair, wanting to use a different bathroom, insisting they don't need to potty while doing the peepee dance, needing to pet the cat before anything else, wanting to eat at the counter or on the porch or at the table.
There's no negotiating with terrorists.
Put another way, while a parent would probably not actually assign blame for lateness to their child (though oh boy, do I know some that would...), they are nonetheless using their children as an excuse for their own bad behavior, which is rude and dishonest.
Thank god I don’t have a set schedule.
Forgive me for being blunt but: no it isn't. It might take some work over a few weeks and may mean some tough mornings, but throwing up your hands and saying "well, I guess you're the boss 2 year old!" is silly. Your two year old can't tell time and you can migrate his schedule forward 5-10mins a day if you want too. Yes, his sleeping/waking will fluctuate around a mean and you can't control that, but you can control the mean value.
Parenting is really a full-time startup CEO type of job. It's not like you can change a kid's behavior without some systematic resolve.
It's just hard.
Yes, riding your bike in an urban area is often more or less as fast / convenient as driving. However, driving at 70mph vs biking at say 15mph, the time difference adds up very quickly once you are out in open country.
Not to mention that there is very well built infrastructure for driving, while biking often means going on that same infrastructure with a 50mph difference between you and the rest of the traffic. Basically if you are riding on a bike on a highway, you need to act as if you were invisible and expect that cars may actively try to kill you.
It's insane how little bikes (or pedestrians) are considered compared to here in Sweden.
You don't need a truck, but you definitely need a car (with four wheel drive in many parts).
There are millions of people who live in places that require traveling on high-traffic busy roads to get from point A to B. These roads almost never have a bike lane (bike lanes do not exist outside of large cities). On many roads I drive on (speed limit 55 mph) there is no shoulder. Combine that with roads that have sharp curves that prevent drivers from seeing more than 25 meters ahead... yea, I would not bike with a kid with me.
In the case you mention, airbags are a pretty good reason. Also distance. And disabilities.
Occasionally there was a list on the chalk board, first and last name, of everyone who owed a tab. This was at late as 2008. This was also in a city of like 150; so not even a small town.
Heh, my bar is like this. Been going there long enough that I get to run a tab for a few weeks before the owner finally (jokingly) gives me a hard time about it.
A bowling league I was on for example would allow you to run a tab of drinks/food and pay at the end of the night as they know you are not going to dine and dash.
Granted that was a combination of a bar/bowling alley, but a few other bars that I used to frequent in my younger years after seeing you as a regular would also have no problems letting you run up a tab.
I have never been to a bar on my first visit that had full trust in the patrons right out of the gate, but then again I only was in that scene for 2-3 years.
And this isn't just because I'm a regular. I've seen it happen plenty with people from out of town too. The only thing they'll take your ID for is their mules so you don't run off with a copper mug.
Why is that, exactly? A whole bunch of tables with two people at them sounds like it should be a bit easier than a normal busy day. And you know far in advance that you need to be well-staffed. Are valentines couples very demanding? Are there other troubles?
Intent matters. Let's say your partner is trying to toss a coke bottle into the garbage bin. Let's say your partner misses and bonks you on the nose with the bottle instead. Do you leave? What if your partner, instead, had been trying to throw the bottle at you in anger?
This. So much this.
MVP has a key role in product development - but its place is not necessarily at the phase of "launch it to the public with a marketing campaign." It comes before that.
Of course my startup will require a few billion to iron out the rough edges.
I think you're probably right about students not being the product, they're more of a raw material?
I'm being slightly cheeky, but I don't think the relationship is best viewed as the student being the customer, certainly not if the degree is the product.
I totally agree with your description about the opportunity to be close to work. It's sort of sad that those who are often struggling with other things, career, money, are also the folks who can't afford to save time by being close to work.
Except the "our card reader is broken, we can only accept cash"-surprise, I can only remember three occasions this actually caused some hurdle for me in the past decade-and-a-half.
It always blew my mind how long the line was when I walked by. It had to be just tourists who were willing to wait in that long of a line just for the novelty of being able to say they've been inside an official, Nutella-branded store.
Bill splitting is a major pain in Australia and I've done the whole yelp outrage thing after rude staff have refused to split the bill (when we said at the beginning!). I much prefer Denmark, where the bill is always split, and you have to take someone's bill to pay for them. See also: a year of living danishly https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Living-Danishly-Uncovering-Hap...
Highly dependent on the region. In Germany and Austria [the only countries that I'm sure about :)], you're not as expected to tip as in the US for example, but it's still customary to do so.
If your service was bad, you don't tip. If it was okay, you may or may not tip a small amount. If it was great, yes, absolutely, you do tip.
> i.e. wages are very high in CH
That's probably because wages in CH are very high in general. Kind of evens out, seeing as the cost of living is equally high compared to most other countries in central Europe.
Clubs in my city don't pay people to stand in line either, you either reserve your group in the guest book or didn't and are waiting longer for an "opening". Some clubs are at legal capacity and a line builds up but mostly they frisk everyone and ask for ID which takes a while and causes a line to form, which also benefits the club as a sort of popularity advertisement to others on the street.
The line is for low value customers only.
For that particular stay, yes. But it increases the likelihood that the customer will come back and, perhaps more importantly, tell everyone they know about how awesome the place is. It's hard to see how this wouldn't work out to a net positive in the longer run.
So yes, if this were an additional $20 per sale it might deeply cut into their margins if they aren’t a luxury product.
However, I struggle to imagine that every, or most, or even many, of a hotels sales are anniversaries, or similar kinds of events, that would deserve such additional servicing.
If the total profit is $200k, a single $20 (or relatively few) instance is nothing, regardless of high or low margins.
Specially servicing these rare, one-off events, is exactly how you exceed customer expectations without running your business into the ground.
If there are no cars there, people assume others confirmed you can’t park there!
Wish I could find the article, but I recall reading something a year or so ago that found a link between new parents and a newfound reduction in empathy for anyone outside their nuclear family. Given that, I guess this attitude shouldn't be surprising.
If you want to ban bags, do like, say, the Pearl Harbor Memorial and explicitly ban any bags over some certain set of dimensions.
At stores with self checkouts, I don’t really see the difference because they’re already placing trust in you anyways.
That's why the trick of parking a nice car on a street wouldn't work in SF, Palo Alto or Mountain View.
I don't understand.
Why would your friend potentially (?) stealing put you off visiting?
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Nevada,+Iowa+50201/Ames,+Iow...
also my two cents: it's dangerous as all heck doing anything but driving on those roads. I almost got hit by a friend of mine who was texting and driving while I was running about 30 miles from there out in the country.
Where are you based?!
There is a place not far from me that i've seriously considered applying to that is VERY close. If only for that reason ;)
Moving is costly, in dollars, and in changes for my family.
And then my wife would work 40+ miles from work...
If you're in a major city it just isn't feasible to purchase a home within walking distance of your business. In the Seattle area, for example, house prices would be easily over a million for anything nearby
That is exactly what it means. People without children have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and have no means of acquiring that knowledge except by having a child.
Yes, there are many things about being a parent that you can't truly know or understand until you experience it for yourself, but that doesn't mean that only a parent can see when another parent has screwed up.
So I can't criticize law enforcement because I'm not a LEO? I can't criticize a politician because I'm not in politics? I can't criticize a woman because I'm not female myself? I can't criticize a parrot owner because I don't own a bird? This is an absolutely ridiculous line of reasoning
>People without children have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and have no means of acquiring that knowledge except by having a child
So a male doctor can't be a gynecologist because they have "no idea what they are talking about and have no means of acquiring that knowledge except by having" female genetalia? I can't have any idea what it's like owning a parrot except by owning a bird? Again, this is absolutely absurd. Having a child does not enter you into some elite class of individuals that no one else can understand, and it's perfectly acceptable for me to criticize you despite not having children myself
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.”
Your male OB example is really close to hitting a subject where people are sometimes angrily and even violently attached to their positions and on which some insist that men do not even have worthwhile opinions — merely because they are men. Similarly, others stake out positions that it is okay to “punch up” because they allege that ethics, propriety, and justice depend on group identity. These are utterly irrational by the same point that I believe you’re making, but knowing your audience is crucial. Good luck being heard on certain subjects.
Parenting isn’t that extreme, but a strong emotional component is present. With criticism in general, if in the audience’s view you haven’t earned the right, then you’re just running your mouth. You may have heard of Powdered Butt Syndrome: anyone who has powdered your butt does not want your opinion on money or sex. Being a parent changes everything in ways that it’s difficult for non-parents to understand. Even if a non-parent accepts this on an intellectual level, the deeper visceral appreciation is still missing.
Yes, being late is rude. Screaming children in a restaurant while others are trying to enjoy a meal is annoying. Parents should not allow their kids to behave like ill-mannered brats. To really oversimplify, becoming a parent tends to raise some parents’ tolerance to misbehavior. I can talk about gross topics over dinner that would have caused my pre-kids self to ask for a change of subject or to excuse myself from the table. Parenting can be exhausting. All relationships are challenging at times. Sometimes people choose to pick their battles.
All that said, some parents dismiss advice or criticism from other parents too. It must be nice to have your perfect kids, live in your perfect neighborhood, and send them to their perfect school. What do you know about my situation? You have X and I don’t. I have Y and you don’t.
Anyone can criticize to criticize. Doing it with love to actually help someone else is much more delicate.
Or, all the planning goes out the window when one of them is wailing or throwing a tantrum, or is so so so eager to show you this wonderful thing they finished drawing for you. Then you have to adapt that wonderfully planned schedule/plan, so your previously-allotted buffer dwindles and next thing you know you're one new-issue away from being late.
But yeah, one of other comments mentioned. There is a difference between being late once in a while vs always.
Yes, being a bit early sometimes is a natural consequence of leaving enough time so that you're not late. Being late is much worse than being early because it is disrespectful of other peoples time.
If you're a bit early, then you get a few stress free minutes to hang out with your kid: sit in the car and sing songs together, run around the school yard, take a walk, talk about whats been on their mind lately etc.
I wouldn't call that fickle as it went further than just a bad visit.
Getting pissed off over an experience like that is probably an appropriate response. Or bringing the 10 year history of being a loyal client to the management's attention. But going to war against them for a once in 10 years event sounds like first world entitlement.
The overall point about the lengths needed to maintain an experience that keeps customers happy is real, though. You don't make money by trying to profit on every transaction or treating entitled people like you know they're acting like an ass.
In general I'd be inclined to agree, but two things come to mind. One: if I had a reservation I'd expect it's for a table not a seat at the bar. Two: being deliberately singled out versus being an accident. If the staff had been more obvious (e.g. tables are for whites only), would you suggest giving them another chance?
DOSA in SF (the one on Fillmore) deserves an honorable mention for not honoring reservations. We showed up early with a reservation and they continued to seat people before us, after like half an hour we all left because we were going to a show. I talked to the manager who claimed we arrived late, etc., etc. I wasn't a regular customer, I didn't make a scene, but you can bet your ass I'll badmouth DOSA every chance I get. If you're not going to honor reservations, why take them?
You don't make money by trying to profit on every transaction or treating entitled people like you know they're acting like an ass.
And what makes someone entitled? Wanting a table to go with the reservation? Or looking different than the typical customers?
The guy apparently received appalling service and was humiliated in front of his girlfriend on Valentine's day by a restaurant he trusted and was attached to.
This was personal betrayal.
This is why cause people to react so strongly. We don't see this as a simple business transaction, this is personal and emotional.
It makes no difference if it's rational or not if it's reality because if you're an expensive steak house, you have first world customers so their first world problems are your problems.
Do the exact same thing they did except simply present it better and apologise and now you're likely not going to piss off a loyal customer.
In his defense, if a customer is paying and not asking for out of the ordinary, it's really bad business to not at least acknowledge the customer when they are generous enough to complain.
Yes I would go to steakhouse which has 97% chance of being awesome, with 3% chance of waiting in the line 30+ minutes, even on valentine. But that's me (and my wife)
You think it's hard to get a kid to get ready in the morning? Try getting a cranky, tired kid ready in the morning.
Please, respond by saying that the solution is to put them to bed earlier. I know you want to.
If you are constantly late for everything and always blame it on your kid, you are doing something wrong. You should know by now that things always take longer than expected with a kid, and plan accordingly. No, you will not always get it right, and that's fine. Occasional lapses are expected and accepted. But if it becomes a regular pattern, you are simply shifting blame for your poor time-management skills onto a child that does not deserve that finger pointed at them.
If you are going to discount my opinion out of hand, I suppose I can't keep you from doing that. But, my opinion happens to agree with that of a parent upthread, so... take that as you will, I suppose.
Really? What about children of truly abusive parents (who are not themselves parents)? Are their critiques of their parents as parents not remotely sensible?
I'm not at all in favor of people aggressively policing the parenting practices of others. I just don't think Dunning-Kruger applies at all here, because everyone (except orphans) has some significant experience with the practice of parenting - even if it is only as the parented, you can still form cogent opinions about the practice. It's not some high expertise domain like programming, it's literally human nature.
The reality is, if 97% was a great experience and 3% awful, its still a great place when averaged. I for example would gladly try out such a place if it would be described objectively, without some stupid emotions overshadowing every single fact.
Some would call the reaction appropriate, some overblown. Not judging, haven't been treated like that. But generally emotions are bad long-term advisor, unless decision also passes some basic logic check (which usually they don't).
We need to listen to our emotions more, not less in some circumstances. I don’t mean to make a scene, but to take it as a sign that we shouldn’t eat at that restaurant, take that job, date that person, patronize that airline, etc.
A lot of people don't want it that much, and that's fine - that's why not everybody does live within walking distance of their employer. But if you want something enough, there are paths you can take that open up the possibility, you just need to be prepared to sacrifice in other areas.
Obviously some people thrive in that situation. But sounds naive to not realize how few people can or want to take that gamble.
And being flexible with your lifestyle and assumptions so that you can get what you really want in life is exactly what is being discussed here.