I went to an event last night hosted by the Philadelphia chapter of Social Media Club. After the event, a group of about 20 of us went to a nearby establishment to consume a few cold adult beverages. I won’t name the establishment right now for reasons I’ll explain later in this post.
A normal Wednesday night
So it was a Wednesday night, not generally the busiest restaurant night. Sometimes there is a “hump day” crowd, but last night, this particular establishment was a little quiet. So when we showed up 20 people-strong, you would think that was a good thing…right?
Well, our server was a little rude, she rolled her eyes a few too many times for my liking and everything seemed to be a BIG deal. Accommodating is not the word I would use to describe her.
One person’s beer was flat; the tap was no good, so she asked for a replacement. No big deal right…wrong. This server wasn’t happy about it, from the looks of the interaction I think her expectation was “you sit there quietly and drink your flat beer.”
I asked if I could pay with credit card for my portion of the tab. You would’ve thought I asked her to walk over glass to Mastercard’s headquarters.
What were the implications of that 15 years ago?
15 years ago we all might’ve left with a bad taste in our mouths about it. We might decide not to go back. We might’ve ALL decided to tell ALL of our friends about it. It would’ve taken a lot of time…think of the number of phone calls it would take.
Word of mouth was still an issue. Businesses had to be on their game but the extent to which people could share their negative experiences was fairly minimal.
Today and Beyond
Did I mention that I walked in with 20 SOCIAL MEDIA Professionals? Guess what we do for a living? There were 20 of us and between just 4 of us we have a Twitter following of 52,714! That doesn’t even include Facebook profiles, Facebook Pages, our blogs, our Google Buzz, our Yelp, our Foursquare, our SCVNGR or any other service that we use and connect to others through.
Now I’ve said it before that the number of Twitter followers that a person has is virtually irrelevant, what matters is who is actually listening. So let’s be conservative and say only 1% of all of those 52,714 followers listen, that’s still 527 people. If you were a restaurant owner, would you want 527 people thinking you have flat beer and rude service?
It’s so much easier for us now to spread information both good and bad. That means YOU, as a business owner, need to step up your game. Work to delight your customers.
I’m not going to call out this restaurant, everyone has an off night. I do find it interesting that there are businesses that don’t yet appreciate the virtual conversation cloud that floats over our city, influencing buying behavior, especially restaurants and hospitality businesses.