A little quickie for you today…
I’m often amazed at the absence of business sense exhibited by many “mom-and-pop” stores. I don’t mean to malign them as a whole, but often they don’t understand that what they think is good for their business may hold them back. The unfortunate thing about this is that many have great products and could really expand and succeed.
As I read this Wall Street Journal article about coffee shops prohibiting laptops, I immediately noticed the actions of the Cocoa Bar with a customer on Yelp:
“Good luck staying open when you’re turning half your clientele out on a Friday night,” Hannah Moots, 23, wrote about Cocoa Bar on Yelp, a Web site where customers rate retailers. When Ms. Moots, who aspires to be an archaeologist, met her boyfriend at the coffee shop after 8 p.m. on a Friday to work on graduate-school applications, she was ushered out, she says, even though the place was almost empty.
“We had to power down or leave instantly,” Ms. Moots wrote in her blog. She left and went to a different cafe, where she later expressed her dismay on the Web. Masoud Soltani, a Cocoa Bar owner, confirms that he sent her a Yelp message: “I remember you very well…I would not think you would write such bad stuff about us.” Mr. Soltani says she is no longer welcome in his store.
Here you have a customer who was turned away from the place because of her laptop use. I won’t fault the Cocoa Bar for prohibiting laptops if doing so has been good for business. (The article doesn’t say, however given the web site I could see it being a problem at night.) The response, however, to simply “not welcome” someone to their place because of a negative review is just a bad idea and bad customer service.
Small Businesses (and large, you’ve made the mistake too): If someone maligns you on a web site, the WORST thing you can do is criticize them and ban them from your establishment. What does that say about your customer service? The better response might be, “We would welcome Ms Moots back to our establishment anytime, we just would like her to respect other customers by following our policy on laptops.” Now, not only does the Yelp community know that the owner can be adversarial, but readers of the Wall Street Journal do as well.
I did check out the Yelp page. It seems to carry a positive rating overall, but there are a significant number of negative comments. I only hope for Cocoa Bar’s sake that the other negative comments weren’t addressed in the same manner as Ms. Moots’.
Tags: customer service, yelp
Great story,
Let the seller beware. We are not a powerless mass of customers anymore. Social networking has made us an organized union of consumers and the economy is making us look for places that want our business and strive to make our experiences worth the money.
I’m always amazed at places that are trying to put themselves out of business. Hannah has other places to go and the coffee shop will have an expensive time replacing her.
Ah, you said it so well… “Seller Beware”
I hope you don’t mind if I use that phrase in the future!
Its not just Hanna that Cocoa has to replace, but all the potential customers that read that review (and others), or saw The Journal story and never came into the store.
Thanks for the feedback!