Business Nightmares

I was recently watching one of my few guilty pleasures that can be found on a television set. The show is "Kitchen Nightmares" and it tracks Gordon Ramsay as he shows up to help an underperforming restaurant get their act into shape. Not known for diplomatic tact, Chef Ramsay tears into managers and owners with a verbal sledgehammer as if they've spent the last 4 years teaching kindergarten kids how to smoke. Little is left when he's done ripping everybody apart. That's when he begins re-crafting the focus of the restaurant to better reflect what will actually be of value to the community.

What fascinates me is that in nearly every single case, the problem is exactly the same as the problems he faced in previous kitchens. Very simply, the owners aren't listening to the clients.

In one case, a woman complained that her food was too cold. The waiter took the food back to the kitchen where the entire plate was put into a microwave for a quick nuking. When it came out steaming about 35 seconds later, she shook her head and commented (quite correctly) that it was clear that they had just microwaved it. Having spent good money for what she hoped would be a good quality meal, she was annoyed. The owner then stepped out into the dining room and berated her for her comment, falsely claiming that it hadn't been microwaved. Think she's ever coming back?

In another case, a young man had grand visions of a unique type of pizzeria. He forged ahead with his vision, hardly noticing that he almost never got repeat customers. When people came in, it took about 5 minutes to explain how the restaurant worked. Thoroughly confused, they would either leave to find simpler fare elsewhere or give it a try, find that it wasn't worth the effort, and never return. The owner couldn't understand why it was failing, yet forged ahead with his initial plan valiantly (or would that be "stubbornly?")

Cases of lousy food, poor service, and weird combinations are everywhere. The owners cannot understand why things are failing, yet they maintain their current method of doing business out of fear. What are they afraid of?

Running a customer service business is difficult on many levels. One practice that should NOT be difficult is, ready for it?.... ready?.... LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!! For some reason though, these restauranteurs were unable and unwilling to do just that. WHY?

We get client comments all the time on how we should improve our business. Often times the comments are contradictory, impractical, or just poorly thought out. They are ALL well intentioned though, and we'd be foolish to simply dismiss them. Instead, we listen closely for the good ideas, and try to implement them. When we haven't heard from clients in a while, we reach out to them and ask "how can we get better?" Guess what. They love to tell us, and we love to hear it. Almost EVERY single time, we come out of the endeavor with great new ideas for improving our business, and we don't have to invite a foul mouthed British celebrity to scream us into submission. I read a book many moons ago that had a lot of business tips. One that stuck with me was this: Good managers get all the good news first. GREAT managers get all the bad news first. If you aren't ready to hear the bad news, how are you going to know how to improve?