No Cream Cheese for you

I stopped in, grabbed a couple bagels, and headed out. When I got about ten minutes away I realized that the order had gotten messed up. I noticed that the order only had one of the bagels correct(lox and cream cheese...yummm) and the other had no cream cheese. Who wants a bagel without cream cheese?

You definitely need to take the time to let the business owner understand that there's an issue. The only way they're going to know, or be able to do something about it, is if you give them the feedback. So I did exactly that. I turned back around even though it was an inconvenient ten minute ride back to the location. 

I walked in the door and went to the owner and told her I had an issue with my order. I had ordered one bagel with lox and cream cheese and another bagel with just cream cheese. With a very stern voice she tells me, "That's not what you said when placing the order". "You didn't want cream cheese at all on the second bagel".

You definitely don't want to make this mistake. Regardless of who made the error it is not a good idea to tell the customer that they're incorrect.

She could have easily just chalked it up as a mistake, apologized, and said let's make this right. Instead she chose to stick to her guns, and proceeded to ask me if I still wanted cream cheese and charge me $2 for a tiny tub of cream cheese. 

 

It can be as simple as repeating the order back to the customer to confirm that it's correct. You can also take a more high tech approach to display the order electronically so the customer can confirm before the order is processed. Capturing of customer orders is a critical part of the customer experience and should be integrated into any training system that a business has. It is obvious here that either none existed or it wasn't properly executed.

 

While paying the $2 is not a big deal, the point is that she could have just given me the cream cheese in an attempt to win me over me as a satisfied customer. Instead, she escalated it, and made a simple mistake about cream cheese turn into a customer ranting about the business on social media as an example of poor Customer Service. 

I decided that I would never go back to this location, so they lost a customer and my revenue forever.

So you can see that customer satisfaction absolutely does have a direct impact on revenue, the longevity of a business staying within a community, employing people and paying taxes. 

The Top 5 Killers to Customer Satisfaction(written by yours truly 🙂) explores the link between Customer Satisfaction and the fives ares that any business needs to develop a plan for. Killer number 3, Returns an Rewards, details "The fact that a product had to be returned by the customer should be embraced as an opportunity to recapture the good graces of your customer." You can download a FREE copy here: Top5Killers . By downloading you are also granted a FREE 15 min Consultation 

P.S. This bagel store is no longer in business. Surprise, Surprise!!!