My buddy stayed home today. So I decided to eat lunch alone. I went to this Chinese food place that has great food at reasonable prices. I was taken aback a little by the large number of cars in the parking lot. However I went in for lunch anyway.I got seated quickly. But it took a while for my waiter to arrive. I ordered a lunch special and chose white rice. These specials come with a spring roll and soup. I got the soup fine. However the spring roll did not follow. The waiter showed up with my main course. It had fried rice instead of white rice.
The waiter said he would go get my spring roll. I had to ask for hot mustard. There was not anything out of the ordinary about my needs here. You would think this should be easy work for a Chinese food restaurant. Today the service was poor. I will give them a little break because they were busy.
What do you do in these circumstances when service is sub par? I have read that you are supposed to speak with a manager. Personally I reduce their tip. And as a habit I make sure I go elsewhere the next time. In this case however, I will be returning. The fact that the food is so good and the price is right makes me overlook some service issues.
This is the lesson here. If you do not have consistent service, you run the risk of losing customers. However there are other ways to produce excellent goods that might override the normal course of business and help you keep your customers. The goal should be to have great products plus awesome customer service. Then you succeed with the one-two punch.
