How to Fail in Business

Picture from http://www.relatably.com/m/angry-memes-pinterestThis is a personal story I experienced, and how this kind of experience is bad for your customer if you have a business.

So, I was enjoying my weekend by going to some restaurant to have dinner with my friend. I like to try new foods, so I decided to go to a restaurant I never went before, it was located on the mountainside, so it has a good atmosphere.

So I entered the restaurant, no one greets me, no one offered me something, so we just walked away to find a table. The restaurant was huge, so we walked quite far and found a table at the lower level (the restaurant was an outdoor restaurant, and it has multiple level as it is located on a hill).

So we sat, and waited for a waiter to give us the menu and offer us something. Nope, not a single waiter dropped on us to offer something, so I approached them and asked,

Can we have the menu?

He told me to ask another waiter at the top, so I walked to the top, and asked the same question again, now she told me to get the menu upstairs.

Okay, now I am really feeling uncomfortable, not because I have to walk, but because none of them offered me any helps to order. They were all just telling me to go find the menu yourself, and order it yourself, where and when, its not our business.

So I went upstairs, looking for a place where people queue, and searched for a menu, it was put on a table near the cashier in a non-managed state, not even a text or a guide telling visitor to get the menu here.

So I picked the menu, and then went back to my table to ask what my friend wanted to order. Then I went back upstairs again to queue on the cashier, tell the menu we ordered, and the cashier told me please wait 30 mins for this specifically selected food. I said OK, and paid the order, and went back to my table.

Now, I assume everything is clear. Apparently, it was not, I did not get anything that I ordered until one and half hour, not even the drinks. So as I am getting tired waiting for one and half hour, I approached them and asked where is the food we ordered?

Well, this is when I saw the problem. The entire management was in total chaos, the customer supports and kitchen management was in chaos, no one knew who was responsible for this. They were all shouting to each other everywhere, it was a disaster (in case if it was not enough, the way they deliver the food to your table is by shouting your name uphill and expect you to response, either shouting back or raise your hand, then they know where to deliver the food).

The problem was its not just me complaining, the others also approached them and complained the same issue about having their orders not being delivered to them.

So I said to myself, this was a total chaos, if I got angry to them, it would not do anything, and they were all just the employees, their manager should be the one responsible for this chaos.

Now it was late, and I don’t want to spend any more time at this restaurant so I just told them, deliver the orders fast or I will ask for refund. Then I went back to my table and the orders eventually arrived, with them not apologizing for being unresponsive.

So, from this event I learned, that if I had this kind of business, there are some points that need to be done and need to be avoided.

1. **Always guide new customer —**It doesn’t matter what kind of guide, whether it is a text or a direction telling them what to do, or a person acting as a receptionist to tell new customer.
2. **Even if you were not the person responsible, at least guide them to the person responsible —**This is so the customer feel that they are treated nicely, feeling respected. Don’t just tell them to go here and there. Walk with them, talk with them and help them solve their problem.
3. **Manage the employee noise level —**Customer would never, ever, wanted to hear your employee shouting to each other. Unless you are in some kind of sport business, in which shouting increases the adrenaline of the customers.
4. **Don’t let the customer wait for more than 10 minutes —**Fast pace everything, even if you can not deliver the entire request, just send them one by one, at least they have something within 10 minutes, and not just waiting blankly for the entire request.
5. **As the manager, be responsible and always provides a feedback box —**Yes, be there, see the problem, and approach the customer having the problem rather than letting your employee handle them because your employee was not supposed to do that, unless you trained them to handle complaints. Make your employee focused on their tasks, you handle the complaints. Provides a good set of procedure and guidance for them on how to handle customer, if it was outside this procedure, let them approach you to handle the customer problem. Feedback box is nice to have, you want your customer give feedback to you directly, rather than later they posted it on the media.

So, this is my personal opinion about some points needed to be done to not fail in business. What other ideas you have to help us not to fail in business?

By Aditya Purwa on June 20, 2017.

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Exported from Medium on June 19, 2023.