Watermelons Every Day Keep The Customer Away

It was about one and half years ago. I was to visit Bangalore for a three day official trip. As my morning flight got delayed, I reached B’lore around noon. My stay was arranged in a business hotel near to my office.I checked into the hotel. The room was spacious and good. I decided to have lunch from the hotel itself. The bearers in the restaurant were very friendly and they showed 100% justice to “service with a smile”. Lunch was not all that good for me as they had very limited choices of vegetarian dishes in the buffet.

My colleagues had planned a dinner that evening with the newly joined account head in the restaurant of the hotel where I stayed and I was also invited for it. My opinion was to choose another restaurant based on my experience of having lunch there. But since I had no clue on the non-vegetarian dishes, I did not express my opinion strongly.

Around 8.30 PM, we all were at the restaurant in my hotel. After having soup and starters, we moved to the buffet table to take other dishes. I noticed that all the items on the buffet table, including the fruits and deserts, were same as the ones they served for lunch! I tried to have a second look to confirm. The watermelon pieces on the desert table smiled at me confirming that I was right. Most of my colleagues were non-vegetarians and they seemed to enjoy the dinner. I was struggling to finish the items on my plate and my colleague sitting next to me asked whether I did not like the dinner as well. I smiled at him and replied, “The menu for lunch and dinner seem to be the same. May be, they have served the leftover lunch for dinner”. The chicken piece in his hand had a momentary pause on its way to his mouth as he was digesting what I said. He could not resist himself from sharing that fact with others . It took couple of minutes for everyone to come to terms with it.

After the dinner, the bearer came to our table with the restaurant feedback forms.If there are more stakeholders in the client’s organization, typically feedback is provided only after consultation with the most dissatisfied stakeholder. Here also, the situation was no different. Everyone wanted me to give the feedback as I was the most dissatisfied customer. But I suggested to fill two separate feedback forms as I felt that my feedback won’t represent the opinion of the entire team because they were not as dissatisfied as me. While my colleague gave a neutral rating for overall food quality, I gave an extremely dissatisfied rating for it with a comment, “Please do not serve leftover lunch for dinner”. Within seconds of receiving the feedback, the bearer boy came running to me and asked me smilingly why I gave such a low rating. I smiled and asked him to read the comment given. He neither accepted nor denied my feedback. He wanted me to talk to the restaurant manager the next day.

Next day morning, I was in a hurry to get ready for office. My habit of checking the expiry dates of items made me realize that I was provided with a shampoo bottle which had expired 6 months back. When informed, housekeeping team got me another bottle, but with the same expiry date. I did not understand how they could make the same mistake twice. I called them up again and they replied, “Madam, Sorry, this is what we have in our stock. We need to request for a new stock now”. At last , they chose to be transparent with the customer as there was no other way left. I did not want to take the risk of using expired shampoo fearing that it would even bleach my hair to grey instead of cleaning it and so, went to office without washing my hair.

When I returned to my hotel in the evening, I was greeted by two gentlemen who were standing at the lobby, dressed up in full suit, their faces glowing with wide smiles. It looked like they were competing with each other on who can smile wider. I kind of assumed that they were part of the hotel management team. I greeted them back and went to my room hoping to find a new shampoo bottle, but was highly disappointed to see the old one there. I did not want to waste time again talking to the housekeeping team, so rushed back to the company campus to buy one from the store inside the campus. The store was about to close as it was 8 PM, but could manage to buy one. When I returned to the hotel, I did express my disappointment to the person in the reception as they failed to act on such a small issue -an issue as small as providing a new shampoo bottle. I felt thatbare minimum customer should be informed if they could not take timely action so that customer could plan for an alternate resolution. He promised to take action, but I told him that it was not required as the issue was resolved. Within half an hour, the housekeeping boy was at the door of my room with some sachets of shampoo which they managed to buy from somewhere.

I went down to the restaurant for dinner. As soon as I entered the restaurant, the bearer boy came running to me and insisted that I should meet the general manager or the restaurant manager. And there he was - the restaurant manager- the guy whom I met at the lobby. He wanted to talk to me about my feedback on food quality. Yes, it was a post feedback discussion between the customer and the service provider.

He clarified to me that they did not serve leftover lunch for dinner; it was just that the menu was same. But they prepare it all fresh for the dinner ! That was really hard to believe !

I smiled and asked him, “When you take all the pain to prepare it fresh, why don’t you have a different menu for the dinner? “

He replied, “Ma’am, you know, we also need to manage our costs. “

Today, cost reduction is something we hear in almost every organization. And many a times the cost reduction strategies are penny wise and pound foolish.

I replied, “I don’t think that offering a good choice for food would increase your cost. Of course, it is your internal issue which you need to manage. What I expect is value for my money.”

He seemed to be more keen about cost management. But, at the same time, he did not want to have a complaining customer. So, the next option was to manage the complaining customer.

Another option was put forward to me, “Ma’am, in case you want something special for dinner, you could tell us and we would prepare it for you and only for you. ”

What a wonderful deal ! He looked at me for a positive response.

"But what about your other customers ? I don't want to have any special treatments", I replied.

He must have thought what a customer I was ! Why should this lady worry about other customers ?

His smile faded away when I rejected his offer outright as I was not interested to enjoy anything special just because I complained.

The discussion was not fruitful for him. I went ahead with the dinner. After the main course, I proceeded to have some fruits and desert. The watermelons kept on the desert table smiled at me. But, they looked pale. When I tasted them, I understood why they looked pale. They were sick. They were rotten. May be, they were leftover pieces from the previous day ! I requested the restaurant manager to taste them. He had no choice but to recall the product.

The next day, I had dinner from the restaurant nearby. Of course, watermelons every day keep the customer away.

When I was checking out, the lady at the reception requested me to fill the overall feedback form . I told her that I had already provided feedback in various forms. This is another thing which happens in organizations. The same customer gets bombarded with multiple feedback forms because it is part of the process. Understanding the real root causes and taking the right set of actions lacks adequate attention sometimes , the reasons in some cases being internal policies and constraints.

I was least interested to fill one more feedback form. When action is not taken for the feedback already given, why to provide one more? So, I politely refused.

Only one out of 10 dissatisfied customers complain and they are the ones who actually help the organizations improve. Real improvement takes place not by managing customers but by effective management of the complaints. Internal policies and constraints whatsoever , should not adversely impact the products or services offered by the organizations. Organizations definitely need to manage their costs. But Cost reduction cannot be at the cost of losing customers.It needs to be done in a much more thoughtful and innovative way without compromising on the value provided to the customers. While It is important to build relationship with your customers, it is even more important to build your products and services right.