Social Media Impulse Disorder
On Mother's Day, my family was considering what restaurant to visit for our holiday dinner. Our primary choice was for an establishment that, in a prior visit, four of us had ended up waiting one hour and forty minutes for our meals -- after we ordered. They had a computer problem that prevented them from entering guest checks to the kitchen. As a result, the management gifted us with four discount coupons. So, this national chain was a strong contender in our decision making process.
Before we could make the final determination, we needed to have a couple of questions answered. We had already determined their hours, that their call-ahead widget was inoperable, and their phone number via their web page when we decided to call them directly. And, for the next two plus hours we called seven or eight times -- this was around one to three in the afternoon. It wasn't surprising that it was hard to get through to a restaurant on Mother's Day. What was surprising was that their phone would ring about 15 times and then hang up the call -- no message; leaving us to wonder if they had closed their doors completely.
But, even more surprising was the response I got when I had the audacity to write a post on the social media account of that particular location. In advance of discussing that, I want to establish that I knew that my single post wouldn't change anything, nor have any real impact on their business -- but if others expressed similar experiences, perhaps the owner/manager might at least adopt an automated message. It is also important that I didn't use extreme language or anything like that in my post. I merely indicated that the situation wasn't an example of customer service.
So, what was the response you ask? About 90% negative with respondents stating that I was being unfair, not taking into account how horribly over-worked, under-paid, and harassed by patrons the wait staff and management were on holidays like Mother's Day. I was called bigoted names, demeaned, and equated with someone who should kill themselves. Without exception, posters said I should have used the restaurant site or app to find hours of operation or information on reservations -- making the assumption that they knew what I wanted. No one thought it was fair of me to expect that a business use previous restaurant experience to forecast and plan, or earth-forefend! Staff appropriately. Again, this isn't a mom and pop diner - it was a franchised, national chain with years of experience.
In the end, what is the take away? Since I've been in the customer service business (including restaurant service and management) for over 25 years, I'm fairly confident, the franchiser, their investors, and the owner would prefer happy, repeat customers, and would probably agree that the possibility of sending a potential patron to a competitor should be avoided.