This is how Cafe Coffee Day packed my sandwich once. While it was delicious, this is not how a higher-priced cafe packs its take-away food. It uses butter papers and tissues, not common newspaper. Experience has taught me that arguing with CCD staff never helps, because the manager fails to manage and their social media team effectively deletes complaints from the feed. As a result, I ended up posting about it on social media.
While I (being an unhappy customer yet a potential evangelist) ensured that the unfavorable word spread, this is horrible for the brand image. If you’re a growing small business surviving on word-of-mouth, it matters even more.
What does a customer want?
- To be served well – respectfully, while keeping the promises made.
- To be heard – patiently, with genuine concern.
- Not perfection – but accountability and sincerity.
You don’t do the above and the customer gets angry. The last thing you want is a social media rant, it is something you can neither delete nor control. And a rant usually spreads like wildfire.
How to salvage this situation?
- Do NOT delete the post (if made on your page, the screenshots exist and it will only get worse for you if you scamper away, nitwit)
- Do NOT be rude, defensive and critical of the customer (because the customer is ALWAYS right, especially on social media, and it will only get worse for you)
- Address the customer respectfully, acknowledge the mishap, offer to fix the situation, be genuine.
- Be prompt, show the world that you’re accountable and willing to face the complaints.
How to train your field staff?
Yeah well, “they don’t listen much”, do they? 🙂 But are you, as an organization, doing enough? I’m not well placed to advise CCD on what their action plan should be, but here are a few basic tips which should help companies having up to 50 employees.
- Focus on Basics – what to wrap food with, what not to wrap food with.
- Focus on Communication – how to address customers, how to address non-customers (beggars & non-paying visitors) in work premises, how to smile.
- Focus on Money – how to handle money, how to hold money.
- Focus on Feedback – how to handle feedback, what to do with feedback
Customer service above all.
No amount of money and fat brand image can survive an onslaught of angry customers. It is crucial for us to focus on quality of the service/product delivered and serve our customers well. The smallest things matter, and it’s best not to learn this the hard way 🙂
Aaaaand we have an update!
Perzen Darukhanawalla
Great post Sushrut! I recently was trying to have a coffee at CCD and the manager refused to take my order because she was counting up the till. Upon telling her we really wanted a coffee she told us she had no change and said ‘she’ll give us change as and when she gets it but can’t guarantee it’. I expect better atleast from the store manager as she set a bad example for the rest of her team who was just staring at our interaction.
Sushrut Munje
Bingo, I agree.
Aditya Kumar Nayak
This is exactly why businesses need Ingage. 🙂
Sushrut Munje
Yo, this looks brilliant. Have you written about it here?
Pradeep Hegde
Hi Alok, I had a bad experience with their CCD Express Franchisee, In what ever condition these outlets never make any profit. while selling they make lot of false promises. Is Franchisee means just transferring their risk?
Finally after lock-in period I was able to close that and got my 2.2 Lakh deposit back in multiple installments.
Kindly share some knowledge on franchisee businesses in your upcoming discussion/articles.
Thank you,
Pradeep Hegde
asha chaudhry
pradeep,
alok is not on this thread – it’s been authored by sushrut. but i’ve fwded ur msg to him!
Amit Shroff
Sushrut, I totally agree that Customer is always right and Customer comes first. This is our motive too. In this case I agree they were at fault, but there are several other cases where it is difficult to pacify a customer. Since their intentions are wrong.
Even we had been into similar situation, this is primary because a customer didn’t understand the process to build a eCommerce Store, even after we tried 1000 times to make them understand they never understood.
The basic through was if we have paid them a 50k, he is my slave and I can do what ever I wish to. We sold eCommerce at 50k to this client thinking we will get further business, but this had been my worst experience. Due to legal issue I cannot name the client, but would hope that no one should work with this client. Extremely bad experience.
Again, the smaller cases like this can be easily handled.
One need to understand
Pradeep Hegde
Sorry, was browsing in mobile did not realize. Thank u for fwding.
Amit Aggarwal
Hi! The issue that you are talking about is not just of one CCD branch but it arises out of the company policy of delayed payments to their vendors. We supply various products to CCD and they always make their payments after 90 days and we refused to supply them any thing till our payments from January were not made. Hence the shortage. This is a case of how company policy towards its vendors ultimately effects its customers and ultimately their brand name. We hope the CCD guys are listening.
Sushrut Munje
Thanks for writing in, Amit! This is shocking. I hope they are listening too.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Sushrut, this is a the first part of my piece ‘Why I didn’t like Steve Jobs’
Cafe Coffee day finds a mention towards the end :))
I didn’t like Steve Jobs.
And why?
Because at my dinosauric age of 39, Steve Jobs completely turned my easy chugging life Upside Down.
This is what he did to me:
– He made me go crazy with his attention to detail!
Check out this MacBook remote control I bought some time back:
When I peeled the small tape that sealed this slim box together, I was awestruck. The tape was EXACTLY as slim as the groove it was supposed to sit in. It was NOT EVEN 1 micron broader.
This attention to detail has consumed me in my everyday life.
When I open lunch boxes, envelopes, anything at all – however insignificant, I remember this MacBook remote control box!
I once gave a video descriptive rant to the head of business of Cafe Coffee Day (a coffee shop chain in India) about how their sandwiches were packed in boxes with tapes that were too broad, too long and too difficult to open. I told them to buy this remote control to understand the solution.
Steve Jobs made me think of everything with perfection. And that torments me every single day 🙁
Sushrut Munje
I love this piece. Thanks for sharing.