Bread Pudding Makes Everything Better (sort of)
- Posted By:
- tonya
- Date:
- March 1st, 2011 /// Marketing Trends
How do you turn a disgruntled customer into a brand advocate? It’s a question brands deal with every day. Thanks to social media, it’s becoming more important than ever. But the formula is fairly simple. No matter how badly a brand messes up, relationships are mostly salvageable. It’s about taking an extra step to make sure that the customer knows that a company is willing to do whatever it takes to get them back. This is just one example.
Looking for a different dining option in early December, the hubby and I (with three-year-old daughter in-tow) decided on an English pub that we’ve never tried before. The décor was sweet and the menu looked good, so it seemed like a good choice.
The experience was less than desirable. It started with us being ushered out to the patio (yes, the patio – in December), escalated to mediocre food and crappy service, and was capped off with coffee that didn’t arrive until ten minutes after we were done with desert. To be fair, the desert – bread pudding – was delicious.
When I got home that night, I posted on their Facebook page about the service.
The following Monday, I received a FB message from the marketing/PR rep asking for my contact info. The manager called me the next morning. He apologized and offered to comp us a meal. I assured him it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted and promised that he would send out a gift card so we could give them another chance.
Two weeks later, I still hadn’t received the gift card. I sent a FB message to the marketing/PR person who contacted me initially that essentially said, “While I should be surprised at the lack of follow-through…” I really wasn’t.
Within 15 minutes I received a phone call from the PR person. She apologized profusely, said that there was a mix-up, it was her fault, and that she would send out a gift card immediately.
The next evening the manager from the pub appeared on my doorstep with a takeout of bread pudding and $100 gift card. Talk about going the extra mile to make sure the customer is happy!
This could’ve ended differently – I could’ve shared my experience and they could’ve ignored it. It wouldn’t have been any skin off their back, and I just never would’ve returned. But by making a concerted effort to ensure that I knew they wanted me as a customer, they also got me back in the doors with the gift certificate. With that added touch of the bread pudding, they turned me into a brand advocate.
