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Customer Loyalty and Chinese Food
Written by: Edward AbelArticle Overview: A little story about customer service.
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Customer Loyalty and Chinese Food
Allow me to share a little anecdote about a friend of mine - for this story's sake, I'll call him Bill.
Bill works in midtown, and due to his extremely rigorous work schedule, he rarely has time to prepare his lunch prior to coming into work. Bill's favorite cuisine has always been Asian food - especially Chinese food. Luckily for Bill, there exist seven Chinese food restaurants within a 2-block radius of his office. Bill, or one of his assistants, could very easily walk downstairs and pick up his order; doing so would both save time and money (when you account for delivery charge and a tip).
However, the restaurant from which Bill chooses to order his Chinese food is located nine blocks away from his office. Furthermore, Bill's office location is at the absolute end of the vicinity to which this particular restaurant is willing to send a delivery person. As a result, Bill must wait longer than he'd like to wait for his food. In addition, because of the distance traveled, he must leave a generous tip for the delivery person. The food is better-than-average Chinese food, but it is certainly no more tasty or creative than the majority of Chinese food available in the city.
So, why does Bill insist on ordering from this particular restaurant?
Bill is extremely allergic to peanuts. On top of that, Bill's doctor informed him that he must lower his sodium intake. As you may have been able to guess, the explanation process of his dietary needs is both a difficult and lengthy one. However, Bill's favorite Chinese food restaurant was extremely accommodating when the restaurants closest to his office were not; all of the local restaurants seemed bothered and put-off by Bill's requests. Yet, a close friend of Bill's suggested a Chinese food restaurant to him - this restaurant is now the ONLY Chinese food that Bill will order.
The manager of "Bill's Chinese food restaurant" makes certain that the chefs use a wok in which no peanuts have touched when preparing Bill's food - she also ordered a special low-sodium soy sauce for him. Finally, when Bill calls, she is extremely cordial on the phone; she knows his order by heart and has his credit card on file. As you can imagine, this particular restaurant has diffused the stress that Bill once felt when he ordered food.
The moral of this story is that this Chinese food restaurant, through exceptional customer service, has made it very difficult for Bill to try the competition. When Bill receives coupons or new menus at his office, they always end up in the trash. This restaurant has developed a strong relationship will Bill and their reward is his loyalty.
Ask yourself, are you developing strong relationships with your customers, so that they will be loyal to you instead of trying your competition? What little things can you do to gain the loyalty of your customers?
Action Step: This week, pick one action you can implement into your routine customer service strategy that will lead to building customer loyalty.
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Article Tags: business coach, business coaching, business consultant, business owner, business owners, business training, entrepreneur, ideas for small business, opening a start how to business plan
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About the Author: Edward Abel RSS for Edward's articles - Visit Edward's website  Determined to find a way to educate and advise others in the construction and sustainability of a vital business, he founded ABEL Business Institute. Over the course of this process, he developed The SkillPreneur Business System, a systematic approach to the construction, maintenance, and growth of a business's--an approach that has become the philosophy and methodology of ABEL Business Institute. Ed is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurial studies at New York University (NYU) as well as the Director of the business division at the world class Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). At iPEC, Ed directs the business division that is responsible for supporting the graduate coaches in their business development process. Click here to visit Edward's website   What You Need to Know About Marketing Collect Your Good Marbles Taking Aim with your Business Leadership According to Napoleon Hill 60Second Commercial |
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- Loyalty,
Glad to know a little about you. Yes, this forum holds quite a bit of useful information. We hope you will join into the conversations and get to know us. Welcome!
Where's the Entrance?
- that's true I've been seeing a lot of construction going on to the City of Toronto's sidewalks and even Movie shoots sometimes block of access to stores for a week sometimes..
Guerrilla techniques should be at play here.
1. Get a Can of Paint and some Footstep Stencils and paint footsteps all the way from the accessible street right to your temporary entrance. (may be illegal but the store owner could plead innocent and say he has no idea who did that - maybe a "fan" of the restaurant)
2. I remember when there was the SARS outbreak in Toronto a lot of the Chinese restaurants were not doing so well except for Lee's Garden. I noticed they created a special Menu with prepackaged Menu Items for $20.
3. Create some buzz like with a Unique expereince - "Someone stole all my Plates! Now serving food on Banana Leaves - Guess What! The Food tastes better than ever! Blah Blah...
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT
- Hi David,
To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience".
Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
O;lympics ... may...be good for me
- Since I've got a sports webzine I think I'll start doing some articles about this (I haven't up til now, being concerned with maximizing the NCAA tournament first), and see if that builds up my readership.
On a personal note, I say let the Olympics go ahead, let people around the world see how the Chinese live, let the Chinese people see how everyone else in the world lives, and the government of China will be forced by that - rather than this unfortunate Tibet protests - to mend their ways.
Not that I'm trying to minimize what is happening and has happened to Tibet... it's interesting that only now do a lot of people care... or is it that only now are a lot of people being covered by the media?
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- Hi napoleon,
How did your search for the Chinese manufacturer go?
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