I visited a new coffee shop in a Midwest city where I come to do executive coaching regularly. Someone told me the coffee was good and that the atmosphere had a really cool vibe. My wife calls me a “Coffee Snob”, but I just know what I like and enjoy my daily beverage.
Once when I was working out with a friend at a fitness center, my friend told me we could grab a cup of coffee at an unnamed fast food place. I said I would rather go to a well-known nearby coffee shop. He asked why I didn’t like the coffee at the fast food place. I told him it was because they made coffee with inferior beans. (Hence my wife’s comment that I am a “Coffee Snob”.)Everyone working out stopped in the middle of their routine to look at me. It wasn’t one of my finest moments.
I want every entrepreneur to do well. The longer I was at this new coffee shop with my clients, the more the experience went downhill. There were so many things that they could tweak and then have a place that could do well. Since business improvement is my expertise, I thought I would offer them some free advice.
I asked to speak to the manager and then asked him if he minded me commenting on a few things I saw. The manager said he didn’t mind. I could tell, though, that he was starting to tune me out. After I suggested a few things, he just said “thanks”, turned away from me and went back to his work.
The lesson here is to make sure you tell customers and others that you really appreciate the comments they are giving you and make some remarks about what they said so that they know you heard them.
You may even want to give them a gift card or something that shows them that negative comments given for improvement are so much better than never coming back to that business again.
In the next blog, we will talk about what I noticed at the coffee shop so that you can relate to your establishment for improvements in what you do.
