Comments on: Mingling with the customers http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/ The Get Satisfaction blog Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:48:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: [Sunspots] The mingling edition http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-142 [Sunspots] The mingling edition Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:08:04 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-142 [...] Scorcese uses X to mark the spot in The Departed “As an homage to Howard Hawks’ classic 1932 Scarface, Scorsese scattered Xs throughout the movie (some more subtle than others), using them as a symbol of impending doom.” [via GF] Eliot Noyes: “The Forgotten Pioneer of Corporate Design” “It is harder still to explain why the designer and architect, who died in 1977 at age 67, isn’t better known today, when the principles he championed—the notion that good design is good business, for instance, and the belief in interdisciplinary design teams—are now accepted wisdom. Every designer working in or for Corporate America today owes Noyes a debt of gratitude.” WSJ analyzes social bookmarking sites and says it’s a few power users that dominate links “The Journal’s analysis found that a substantial number of submissions originated with a handful of users. At Digg, which has 900,000 registered users, 30 people were responsible for submitting one-third of postings on the home page. At Netscape.com, a single user named ‘STONERS’ — in real life, computer programmer Ed Southwood of Dayton, Ohio — was behind fully 217 stories over the two-week period, or 13% of all stories that reached the most popular list. (Netscape, which gained fame with its namesake browser, is now owned by Time Warner’s AOL unit and operates a news site.) On Reddit, one of the most influential users is 12-year-old Adam Fuhrer.” Mingling with restaurant customers “My dad never seemed to be working at all. I’d look on as he mingled with diners, mostly making idle chit chat. With strangers he’d walk up to their tables as they ate and ask them how their meals were. At the tables of regulars he might sit down and share a drink, maybe even roll some dice. It was a fantastic excuse for a job. Or so I thought. It turned out that my dad had the most important job in the place. His endless conversations with patrons clued him into changes he needed to make on the menu. He was quickly able to comp a round of drinks if customers received slow service, nipping their frustration in the bud. They would often tell him how they’d heard about the restaurant, and possibly mention an upcoming party they were planning and did the restaurant do banquets? (answer: of course!)” Suggestions for improving the Complete New Yorker UI “Nearly 33% of the vertical space is consumed by tool chrome, those thick gray bars segmenting the screen. Combined with the often bizzare and mostly useless ‘Abstract’ below, this leaves 11 rows for search results, the place where users make decisions on what to launch in the viewer. Unforgiveable.” PowerPoint solutions that “move beyond bullet points” “The single most important thing you can do to dramatically improve your presentations is to have a story to tell before you work on your PowerPoint file. You’ll take Hollywood’s cue and write a special type of script that focuses your ideas and helps you figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it.” Information visualization and the debate over global warming “The most memorable moment in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is when Gore goes off the edge of the graph, rising up in a cherrypicker high above the stage to show what will happen if the present trends continue unabated. It’s a nice bit of theater—the message is dramatized as well as shown through the graph and described verbally. It’s also a crucial moment in the story Gore is telling.” “I did not know that yesterday!” provides answers to unusual questions What country drinks the least beer? How did the rainbow become associated with gay pride? What was the first thing ever sold on eBay? How did the tradition of placing candles on a birthday cake originate? Etc. “It’s just like a mini mall!” [via CM] [...] [...] Scorcese uses X to mark the spot in The Departed “As an homage to Howard Hawks’ classic 1932 Scarface, Scorsese scattered Xs throughout the movie (some more subtle than others), using them as a symbol of impending doom.” [via GF] Eliot Noyes: “The Forgotten Pioneer of Corporate Design” “It is harder still to explain why the designer and architect, who died in 1977 at age 67, isn’t better known today, when the principles he championed—the notion that good design is good business, for instance, and the belief in interdisciplinary design teams—are now accepted wisdom. Every designer working in or for Corporate America today owes Noyes a debt of gratitude.” WSJ analyzes social bookmarking sites and says it’s a few power users that dominate links “The Journal’s analysis found that a substantial number of submissions originated with a handful of users. At Digg, which has 900,000 registered users, 30 people were responsible for submitting one-third of postings on the home page. At Netscape.com, a single user named ‘STONERS’ — in real life, computer programmer Ed Southwood of Dayton, Ohio — was behind fully 217 stories over the two-week period, or 13% of all stories that reached the most popular list. (Netscape, which gained fame with its namesake browser, is now owned by Time Warner’s AOL unit and operates a news site.) On Reddit, one of the most influential users is 12-year-old Adam Fuhrer.” Mingling with restaurant customers “My dad never seemed to be working at all. I’d look on as he mingled with diners, mostly making idle chit chat. With strangers he’d walk up to their tables as they ate and ask them how their meals were. At the tables of regulars he might sit down and share a drink, maybe even roll some dice. It was a fantastic excuse for a job. Or so I thought. It turned out that my dad had the most important job in the place. His endless conversations with patrons clued him into changes he needed to make on the menu. He was quickly able to comp a round of drinks if customers received slow service, nipping their frustration in the bud. They would often tell him how they’d heard about the restaurant, and possibly mention an upcoming party they were planning and did the restaurant do banquets? (answer: of course!)” Suggestions for improving the Complete New Yorker UI “Nearly 33% of the vertical space is consumed by tool chrome, those thick gray bars segmenting the screen. Combined with the often bizzare and mostly useless ‘Abstract’ below, this leaves 11 rows for search results, the place where users make decisions on what to launch in the viewer. Unforgiveable.” PowerPoint solutions that “move beyond bullet points” “The single most important thing you can do to dramatically improve your presentations is to have a story to tell before you work on your PowerPoint file. You’ll take Hollywood’s cue and write a special type of script that focuses your ideas and helps you figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it.” Information visualization and the debate over global warming “The most memorable moment in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is when Gore goes off the edge of the graph, rising up in a cherrypicker high above the stage to show what will happen if the present trends continue unabated. It’s a nice bit of theater—the message is dramatized as well as shown through the graph and described verbally. It’s also a crucial moment in the story Gore is telling.” “I did not know that yesterday!” provides answers to unusual questions What country drinks the least beer? How did the rainbow become associated with gay pride? What was the first thing ever sold on eBay? How did the tradition of placing candles on a birthday cake originate? Etc. “It’s just like a mini mall!” [via CM] [...]

]]> By: Bar Restaurant » Mingling with the customers http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-137 Bar Restaurant » Mingling with the customers Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:13:43 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-137 [...] Original post by thor and software by Elliott Back   [...] [...] Original post by thor and software by Elliott Back   [...]

]]> By: 96iantSteps · OT: a lesson on customers from the restaurant business http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-35 96iantSteps · OT: a lesson on customers from the restaurant business Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:34:19 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-35 [...] To wit, I really enjoyed reading this post on customer knowledge. [...] [...] To wit, I really enjoyed reading this post on customer knowledge. [...]

]]> By: Reis http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-32 Reis Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:59:00 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-32 It really does make all the difference. Getting to know your customers and sharing a smile is a big part of any job dealing with the general public. I used to work at a Cafe in an upper class supermarket and had regulars come in every week that would ask me what i'd been up to and we'd have a conversation of how i was doing at college, etc, and i used to give them extra little bits with their food or drink because i know that ultimately we're losing 10p-£1 on each transaction but the amount they spent in the coffee shop and in the overall supermarket every week more than made up for the tiny loss on each transaction and ensured that they kept on coming back for the conversation and special treatment. Another example i remember one night when i was working was a couple came in with a young child and ordered a hot chocolate and other food. They went and sat down and accidently knocked the hot chocolate onto the floor. Now i could have just cleaned it up, been mardy and said "bad luck" but instead i was pleasent to the couple and after i'd cleaned up the hot chocolate and glass i took them another cup over for free. Once again, we probably lost £3 or whatever on the transaction but the customer remembers the helpful staff at the supermarket and keeps on coming back to spend more in store. The wastage figures probably added up to quite a bit (we always managed to meet and reduce wastage goals) but the amount of money being spent elsewhere more than made up for it. It really does make all the difference. Getting to know your customers and sharing a smile is a big part of any job dealing with the general public.

I used to work at a Cafe in an upper class supermarket and had regulars come in every week that would ask me what i’d been up to and we’d have a conversation of how i was doing at college, etc, and i used to give them extra little bits with their food or drink because i know that ultimately we’re losing 10p-£1 on each transaction but the amount they spent in the coffee shop and in the overall supermarket every week more than made up for the tiny loss on each transaction and ensured that they kept on coming back for the conversation and special treatment.

Another example i remember one night when i was working was a couple came in with a young child and ordered a hot chocolate and other food. They went and sat down and accidently knocked the hot chocolate onto the floor. Now i could have just cleaned it up, been mardy and said “bad luck” but instead i was pleasent to the couple and after i’d cleaned up the hot chocolate and glass i took them another cup over for free. Once again, we probably lost £3 or whatever on the transaction but the customer remembers the helpful staff at the supermarket and keeps on coming back to spend more in store.

The wastage figures probably added up to quite a bit (we always managed to meet and reduce wastage goals) but the amount of money being spent elsewhere more than made up for it.

]]> By: Eric Rodenbeck http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-25 Eric Rodenbeck Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:20:46 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-25 Danny Meyer, of Union Square Cafe fame, has a new (and good) book out on the subject, specifically about how lessons learned in his restaurant business translate out into other businesses as well: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742755" rel="nofollow">Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business</a>. Recommended. He seems to be on a speaking tour as well, or at least was last month. Danny Meyer, of Union Square Cafe fame, has a new (and good) book out on the subject, specifically about how lessons learned in his restaurant business translate out into other businesses as well: Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. Recommended. He seems to be on a speaking tour as well, or at least was last month.

]]> By: Hammad http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-22 Hammad Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:58:59 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-22 Those restaurants which lacks such administrators like your father will definitely result in a failure. Knowing about the need of the customer and taking care of them its not an easy job. In fact its an in build talent. Why don't you have continued your fathers restaurant? Those restaurants which lacks such administrators like your father will definitely result in a failure. Knowing about the need of the customer and taking care of them its not an easy job. In fact its an in build talent. Why don’t you have continued your fathers restaurant?

]]> By: thor http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-13 thor Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:34:19 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-13 Leith, those are some great examples of what I'm talking about. As customers we are so often on guard against the manipulations of cynical profit seekers. Successful restaurateurs cultivate loyal customers in part because they they allow us to lower our guard, trust in the business and be seduced by its charms. And who doesn't want to be seduced? Leith, those are some great examples of what I’m talking about.

As customers we are so often on guard against the manipulations of cynical profit seekers. Successful restaurateurs cultivate loyal customers in part because they they allow us to lower our guard, trust in the business and be seduced by its charms. And who doesn’t want to be seduced?

]]> By: Leith @ Birth of a Startup http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Leith @ Birth of a Startup Thu, 08 Feb 2007 06:46:51 +0000 http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/02/07/mingling-with-the-customers/#comment-12 Restaurant owners are a brilliant example of how to take care of your customers. My fondest memories of my favourite restaurants all involve an animated passionate and considerate host: a little Italian place where the waiters sang opera to you as they served you your meal, that cheeky free dessert wine that capped off a perfect meal, the evocative description of the ingredients in each dish... these are what makes a certain restaurant special, and much of this can translate into other industries... the credit card company that refunds a late fee because you are important to them, the coffee shop attendent who always remembers your order, the sales assistant who genuinely wants to help you find that special gift... these are the experiences that create loyal customers. Restaurant owners are a brilliant example of how to take care of your customers. My fondest memories of my favourite restaurants all involve an animated passionate and considerate host: a little Italian place where the waiters sang opera to you as they served you your meal, that cheeky free dessert wine that capped off a perfect meal, the evocative description of the ingredients in each dish… these are what makes a certain restaurant special, and much of this can translate into other industries… the credit card company that refunds a late fee because you are important to them, the coffee shop attendent who always remembers your order, the sales assistant who genuinely wants to help you find that special gift… these are the experiences that create loyal customers.

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