That is one ugly process

Do you have of a process that is ugly? One that is ineffective, time consuming,complicated or costly. 

We sometimes let these processes slide along because we don't have time to make them right, aren't sure of what "right" is or we assume that people can work well enough within that bad process. The job will get done, right?

It is easy to slide along letting an ugly process continue.

An ugly process caused several people on my team grief this weekend (myself included).  One person made a mistake and missed a step in a poor process that occurred months ago, things fell apart.

So how do we recover from this? First, we accept responsibility. Second, we fix the ugly process.

I have a great team that does great work. My job is to enable them with good processes and clear goals. Good processes aren't a guarantee but they can sometimes head off failures.

I don't have the answer yet for this specific ugly process, but I'm working on it. If you have an ugly process, put down what you are doing and work on fixing it.

Feedback is gold...if you receive it.

Getting bad feedback sucks. Not getting the bad feedback is worse.

Recently I had a meal at a local restaurant. The restaurant has a great reputation, has won awards, has had articles written about it and everyone talks about it. I have eaten their previously with good success.

Yesterday, however, my meal was substandard. My Wild Mushroom Risotto was bland, over-cooked and the portion was too small. I'm not looking for a mammoth, over-consumption-sized meal but I would like to not have to eat a sandwich after my meal. I'm not looking for gourmet but this place is supposed to be pretty high caliber, in our little city.

Did I complain to the server, no. I was with a client and didn't want to create a scene over something as simple as over cooked rice. I wanted to keep the focus of the meal on the client, instead of my plate of mush.

The problem is, the restaurant now has no idea that a customer has gone away unimpressed. This is the worst case scenario for a business.

As a business, I want to know when my customers aren't impressed. I want to know if our service was slow, sloppy or expensive. I want to, at least, apologize for the inadequacy if I can't rectify it. I want to prevent it from happening again.

It isn't always best to complain at the moment that the bad service is happening. However, take the time after-the-fact to jot down your experience or pick up the phone and call about it. If the owner has an appreciation for the importance of service, they will appreciate the feedback.

If you are a business owner, embrace negative comments as a way to improve. Realize that the act of complaining might have been uncomfortable for the client and they probably had a good reason for making it.

Turning customer demands into personal expectations

Most of us have customers that we consider "difficult". We use all sorts of adjectives to describe them. 

If you set aside personality differences (since we can't change those), difficult customers are often described with phrases like:

• "They expect to much for what they are paying."
• "They are never happy with us."
• "Everything has to be done yesterday for them."
• "All they do it point fingers." 

Customers are always going to fight for the best, fastest and cheapest. Some customers have personalities that make them more forceful and demanding. They often end up being seen as the "difficult" ones.

Given this, when we hear or say a comments like these about a customer, step back and consider; How can I turn that into a service goal rather than taking it as a personal attack? Perhaps they are being difficult in the way that they are interacting with you but there is probably some validity to their complaint.

Ask yourself these types of questions instead:

• How can I give better value?
• How can I improve my service standards?
• How can we improve our response or turn around time?
• How can I be more accountable for our service?

Remind yourself that the [insert expletive descriptor here] might be demanding, but there is probably something to what he is saying.

"Closed" can be an opportunity

"They would have lost our revenue and might have lost our loyalty to a competitor.  That is not what happened."

Often times, while I am travelling to Charlottetown PEI, I visit my favorite local restaurant/brew pub Gahan House. The other night was no different.

A colleague and I planned to go for a bite to eat and some of their stellar beverages. When we got to the restaurant we were disappointed to learn that they were in-fact closed, due to a renovation.

It is common for restaurants (or at least the ones that survive long enough) to eventually need a face lift. Normally we would have been met with a simple "closed" sign and we would have moved on to another restaurant. They would have lost our revenue and might have lost our loyalty to a competitor.  That is not what happened.

Instead, Gahan's had a pleasant woman, a server a presume, standing in the doorway of the closed restaurant with a stack of coupons. Since the parent company (Murphy Group) owns another restaurant across the street, we were pointed to The Brickhouse and offered a coupon for a free pint of Gahan's beer that they keep on tap at the sister restaurant.

We ventured across the street where our server took some time to explain to us that the Gahan House would be open the following week, that they would be maintaining the same neighborhood pub feel and that it would only be an improvement on the admittedly great pub.

These simple actions had three important affects:

• It maintained loyalty to the Gahan beer brand and restaurant.
• It coaxed me into a sister property that I had never before visited.
• It created a positive introduction to the new property (free beer!)

The Brickhouse had an easy job from this point forward creating new (and maintaining old) brand loyalty. 

As a side note, the Vegetable Beggar's Purse was excellent, the sweet and salty chocolate cake was great, and the Gahan's Red was, as anticipated, perfect.