Customer service follow through

We all know customer service must be provided at premium levels these days. It’s hard enough to get consumers through the door, but losing them because someone dropped the ball just isn’t an option (and never should have been). So heads up: that ball just might not be the one you expect.

Friday afternoon, a retailer friend, Lyn Williams (Brown and Green Floral) and I decided to catch up at the end of the day over a couple of beers. Off we went to an established restaurant, were seated by the hostess, and were greeted by a delightful server who, in spite of being very nice, kinda sorta forgot to tell us there were happy hour specials on appetizers.

Of course, we didn’t know that, so it didn’t make a difference.

A half hour later, the shift changed, and a new (equally sweet) server took over. Still no mention of specials, since she understandably thought the first server would have told us.

A half hour after that, our new server returned to tell us happy hour was about to end, so if we wanted any of the specials, we had…oh…something like ten seconds to order (okay, not ten seconds, but it was verrrrrrrry few minutes, so hup hup, folks). Stunned that there were specials, and yes, wanting to grab something to nibble on, the two of us raced to make a decision, the server took the order, submitted it, and all was well with the world…

…until the young woman returned ten minutes later to tell us our order was in, but it would be charged at full price because she didn’t enter it into the computer fast enough.

Huh?

No, it wasn’t her fault we didn’t know about the specials. She had every reason to believe we’d been told by our original server.

No, it wasn’t our fault for this running down to the wire since we didn’t know there were specials until the clock was on its final moments.

And no, it wasn’t anyone’s fault the computer automatically assigns prices based on its clock time.

BUT…it was the responsibility of the server to think through how to handle the situation, then choose a more appropriate response than to announce to the customers you’re committed, and it’s going to cost you twice as much as I promised because we dropped the ball on our end.

Why didn’t she go straight to the manager and say “Hey, these two weren’t told about the specials, they ordered really fast, but I missed the time on the computer by seconds” rather than make it the customer’s problem? When we asked (upon her full price announcement) for a re-think on the deal, she talked to a manager, who immediately backed the price down.

Would the additional 50% on the bill been a deal breaker? Nope.

Did her lack of finding a solution leave a sour taste with us? You bet. As two people whose roots are deep in retail, we were both astonished that the server’s immediate response was to disappoint the customer. Not exactly what “service” is supposed to be all about.

The moral of the story: Does your staff either have the freedom to fix simple hiccups on their own, or at least know to immediately connect with someone who does? Have you taught them that delivering bad news to the customer is the last option, not the default answer? And do they know that if they come on duty at a shift change they should never assume the previous employee covered all the necessary bases?

Be sure. Quiz them. Give them hypothetical scenarios to play with.

But whatever you do, make sure dropping the ball isn’t the first response they reach for. It usually ends up landing on the owner’s head.