Customer Service Policies

[jeffandnicole]

it's reflected in a difference in the rating, not what the rating means.

I am not entirely sure what this means.

Exactly what it says: instead of a 4.1 meaning something different for a fast food place than for a more upscale place, instead the fast food place is more likely to just have a lower rating.  I've noticed this with hotels, too.  People seem to be very bad at adjusting their expectations for the type of place they're patronizing.

And people tend to expect minimal anything at fast food places. If the order was correct, there was a clean table and the employees were alive, that beats many people's expectations.

Whereas at a high-end restaurant or hotel, people want to be treated as royalty.  Anything less and that goes against those type places.

[webny99]

it's reflected in a difference in the rating, not what the rating means.

I am not entirely sure what this means.

Exactly what it says: instead of a 4.1 meaning something different for a fast food place than for a more upscale place, instead the fast food place is more likely to just have a lower rating.  I've noticed this with hotels, too.  People seem to be very bad at adjusting their expectations for the type of place they're patronizing.

I've also noticed that fast food places, hotels, etc. tend to have lower ratings, mostly for pretty obvious reasons.

I just think comparing ratings between Wendy's and an upscale restaurant is apples to oranges because expectations, cost, and overall experience are very different, as they should be. Hence why I would interpret 4.1 as "meh" for an upscale restaurant but "decent" for Wendy's, even if the overall experience might be correctly rated as a 4.1 at both.

[kphoger]

I just think comparing ratings between Wendy's and an upscale restaurant is apples to oranges because expectations, cost, and overall experience are very different, as they should be. Hence why I would interpret 4.1 as "meh" for an upscale restaurant but "decent" for Wendy's, even if the overall experience might be correctly rated as a 4.1 at both.

But I think the point is that that should work both ways.  If a fast food place met but didn't exceed your expectations, then why shouldn't that get the same rating as when an upscale place met but didn't exceed your expectations?

It's not like our stars are Michelin stars...

[webny99]

I just think comparing ratings between Wendy's and an upscale restaurant is apples to oranges because expectations, cost, and overall experience are very different, as they should be. Hence why I would interpret 4.1 as "meh" for an upscale restaurant but "decent" for Wendy's, even if the overall experience might be correctly rated as a 4.1 at both.

But I think the point is that that should work both ways.  If a fast food place met but didn't exceed your expectations, then why shouldn't that get the same rating as when an upscale place met but didn't exceed your expectations?

It should.

Met expectations at a fast food restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty decent for a fast food restaurant.
Met expectations at an upscale restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty meh for an upscale restaurant.

[kphoger]

Met expectations at a fast food restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty decent for a fast food restaurant.
Met expectations at an upscale restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty meh for an upscale restaurant.

It sounds to me like you need to adjust your expectations.

[jeffandnicole]

Met expectations at a fast food restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty decent for a fast food restaurant.
Met expectations at an upscale restaurant = ~4 stars. But also, that's pretty meh for an upscale restaurant.

It sounds to me like you need to adjust your expectations.

Take a look at ratings for fast food restaurants you like going to.

Take a look at ratings for upscale restaurants you like going to.

He ain't far off.

[kphoger]

Take a look at ratings for fast food restaurants you like going to.

Take a look at ratings for upscale restaurants you like going to.

He ain't far off.

I picked two at random.

Braum's @ Central/Edgemoor = 4.1 stars
BJ's @ Kellogg/Rock = 4.2 stars

What's your point?  What am I supposed to know from that?  Or is BJ's not "upscale" enough?

[webny99]

It sounds to me like you everyone needs to adjust your their expectations.

FTFY 

But... do they really, though? I think it's OK to expect a ~five-star experience from an upscale restaurant while expecting a ~three-star experience from a fast food restaurant as a baseline.

[kphoger]

It sounds to me like you everyone needs to adjust your their expectations.

Ah, so you interpret ✭✭✭✭ as a "four star experience", whereas I interpret ✭✭✭✭ as a "B".

[webny99]

It sounds to me like you everyone needs to adjust your their expectations.

Ah, so you interpret ✭✭✭✭ as a "four star experience", whereas I interpret ✭✭✭✭ as a "B".

More or less, yes.

To your earlier point, I do think there tends to be "Michelin star" element with reviews of restaurants specifically. And that might not even necessarily be the intent of the reviewers, but it shows up pretty reliably in the aggregate ratings.

[Scott5114]

I would imagine that fast food restaurants tend to have lower ratings than nicer restaurants just because most fast food restaurants typically run perilously close to total meltdown even on a good day. (The need for less overhead means you have less staff in place to handle any problems that arise, and if someone gets sick or doesn't show up then you have fewer people to pick up the slack.) So you're more likely to end up catching one in the throes of a disaster than you are a good sit-down place.

[JayhawkCO]

I would imagine that fast food restaurants tend to have lower ratings than nicer restaurants just because most fast food restaurants typically run perilously close to total meltdown even on a good day. (The need for less overhead means you have less staff in place to handle any problems that arise, and if someone gets sick or doesn't show up then you have fewer people to pick up the slack.) So you're more likely to end up catching one in the throes of a disaster than you are a good sit-down place.

You might be surprised. The margins on fast food is considerably higher than nicer restaurants. The skill gap makes up the difference in staffing levels. Fast food restaurants probably have more people working comparatively than you might think.

[vdeane]

I likewise also interpret four stars as "a B" rather than a "four star experience".  In my mind, five stars is "excellent", four is "good/met expectations", three is "meh, not great, but also not really bad", two is "bad but at least it wasn't worse", and one is "horrible, some fundamental aspect of the experience was broken".

This whole thing of a good rating varying in how many stars it is by how "upscale" the place is reminds me of the stories of supervisors never giving new employees an "outstanding" performance review because the new person didn't have the experience to contribute at the same level as someone who has been there 20 years and gotten a promotion or two.

[Scott5114]

I would imagine that fast food restaurants tend to have lower ratings than nicer restaurants just because most fast food restaurants typically run perilously close to total meltdown even on a good day. (The need for less overhead means you have less staff in place to handle any problems that arise, and if someone gets sick or doesn't show up then you have fewer people to pick up the slack.) So you're more likely to end up catching one in the throes of a disaster than you are a good sit-down place.

You might be surprised. The margins on fast food is considerably higher than nicer restaurants. The skill gap makes up the difference in staffing levels. Fast food restaurants probably have more people working comparatively than you might think.

I've never worked in a nice restaurant, just fast food. At the Burger King I managed, we had one person who was responsible for the entire front of house (lobby, bathrooms, and front counter register), two in the kitchen (who also washed dishes and cleaned the equipment), one in the drive thru, and then the manager, who also covered breaks and allocated the food coming out of the kitchen to the proper orders. As you can imagine, if just one of those people were missing or less-than-capable, it led to some pretty fantastic breakdowns. I imagine there are at least a few non-fast-food restaurants with similarly lean staffing, but is that the norm?

[JayhawkCO]

I would imagine that fast food restaurants tend to have lower ratings than nicer restaurants just because most fast food restaurants typically run perilously close to total meltdown even on a good day. (The need for less overhead means you have less staff in place to handle any problems that arise, and if someone gets sick or doesn't show up then you have fewer people to pick up the slack.) So you're more likely to end up catching one in the throes of a disaster than you are a good sit-down place.

You might be surprised. The margins on fast food is considerably higher than nicer restaurants. The skill gap makes up the difference in staffing levels. Fast food restaurants probably have more people working comparatively than you might think.

I've never worked in a nice restaurant, just fast food. At the Burger King I managed, we had one person who was responsible for the entire front of house (lobby, bathrooms, and front counter register), two in the kitchen (who also washed dishes and cleaned the equipment), one in the drive thru, and then the manager, who also covered breaks and allocated the food coming out of the kitchen to the proper orders. As you can imagine, if just one of those people were missing or less-than-capable, it led to some pretty fantastic breakdowns. I imagine there are at least a few non-fast-food restaurants with similarly lean staffing, but is that the norm?

We used to run lunch shifts at TAG (the first restaurant I was GM of) with me, a server, a bartender, two chefs, and a dishwasher. If it got particularly busy, it was a nightmare, since I was the host/food runner/server/busser/phone answerer/sometimes cook, etc. The things you do to try to make money. So we ran a similar amount of people while also providing full service (i.e., taking orders, refilling drinks, pouring wine/cocktails, etc.). This is fairly normal.

[kkt]

What I will say is that I've been there four times and paid more in tips in those four visits than the entire cancellation fee was worth.

How many positive Google reviews did you leave after those trips?

How many Google reviews do I ever think are real?

[webny99]

I've never worked in a nice restaurant, just fast food. At the Burger King I managed, we had one person who was responsible for the entire front of house (lobby, bathrooms, and front counter register), two in the kitchen (who also washed dishes and cleaned the equipment), one in the drive thru, and then the manager, who also covered breaks and allocated the food coming out of the kitchen to the proper orders. As you can imagine, if just one of those people were missing or less-than-capable, it led to some pretty fantastic breakdowns. I imagine there are at least a few non-fast-food restaurants with similarly lean staffing, but is that the norm?

We used to run lunch shifts at TAG (the first restaurant I was GM of) with me, a server, a bartender, two chefs, and a dishwasher. If it got particularly busy, it was a nightmare, since I was the host/food runner/server/busser/phone answerer/sometimes cook, etc. The things you do to try to make money. So we ran a similar amount of people while also providing full service (i.e., taking orders, refilling drinks, pouring wine/cocktails, etc.). This is fairly normal.

I have my doubts that the number of customers served was similar to a fast food joint. Even so, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that staffing levels would be fairly similar between a fast food restaurant and an upscale restaurant, because one is serving more people but average orders are fairly small and they're getting them through quickly with limited service, while the other is serving fewer but with much larger average orders (both in terms of price and food volume) while also offering full service.

[JayhawkCO]

I've never worked in a nice restaurant, just fast food. At the Burger King I managed, we had one person who was responsible for the entire front of house (lobby, bathrooms, and front counter register), two in the kitchen (who also washed dishes and cleaned the equipment), one in the drive thru, and then the manager, who also covered breaks and allocated the food coming out of the kitchen to the proper orders. As you can imagine, if just one of those people were missing or less-than-capable, it led to some pretty fantastic breakdowns. I imagine there are at least a few non-fast-food restaurants with similarly lean staffing, but is that the norm?

We used to run lunch shifts at TAG (the first restaurant I was GM of) with me, a server, a bartender, two chefs, and a dishwasher. If it got particularly busy, it was a nightmare, since I was the host/food runner/server/busser/phone answerer/sometimes cook, etc. The things you do to try to make money. So we ran a similar amount of people while also providing full service (i.e., taking orders, refilling drinks, pouring wine/cocktails, etc.). This is fairly normal.

I have my doubts that the number of customers served was similar to a fast food joint. Even so, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that staffing levels would be fairly similar between a fast food restaurant and an upscale restaurant, because one is serving more people but average orders are fairly small and they're getting them through quickly with limited service, while the other is serving fewer but with much larger average orders (both in terms of price and food volume) while also offering full service.

Of course we served way less people. Say 50-60 on a given day. But obviously it takes more effort to serve beverages (no self-serve soda machine, hand-made cocktails, water refills, etc.) and food (actually cooking food instead of just rewarming and assembling things). I would argue the average foot speed of those working was probably double an average fast food restaurant.

[webny99]

We used to run lunch shifts at TAG (the first restaurant I was GM of) with me, a server, a bartender, two chefs, and a dishwasher. If it got particularly busy, it was a nightmare, since I was the host/food runner/server/busser/phone answerer/sometimes cook, etc. The things you do to try to make money. So we ran a similar amount of people while also providing full service (i.e., taking orders, refilling drinks, pouring wine/cocktails, etc.). This is fairly normal.

I have my doubts that the number of customers served was similar to a fast food joint. Even so, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that staffing levels would be fairly similar between a fast food restaurant and an upscale restaurant, because one is serving more people but average orders are fairly small and they're getting them through quickly with limited service, while the other is serving fewer but with much larger average orders (both in terms of price and food volume) while also offering full service.

Of course we served way less people. Say 50-60 on a given day. But obviously it takes more effort to serve beverages (no self-serve soda machine, hand-made cocktails, water refills, etc.) and food (actually cooking food instead of just rewarming and assembling things). I would argue the average foot speed of those working was probably double an average fast food restaurant.

That makes sense. I had erroneously interpreted the bolded comment as referring to customers instead of employees.

And I don't doubt it regarding the foot speed, but there's also inherently way more walking distance being traveled in a full service environment.

[JayhawkCO]

We used to run lunch shifts at TAG (the first restaurant I was GM of) with me, a server, a bartender, two chefs, and a dishwasher. If it got particularly busy, it was a nightmare, since I was the host/food runner/server/busser/phone answerer/sometimes cook, etc. The things you do to try to make money. So we ran a similar amount of people while also providing full service (i.e., taking orders, refilling drinks, pouring wine/cocktails, etc.). This is fairly normal.

I have my doubts that the number of customers served was similar to a fast food joint. Even so, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that staffing levels would be fairly similar between a fast food restaurant and an upscale restaurant, because one is serving more people but average orders are fairly small and they're getting them through quickly with limited service, while the other is serving fewer but with much larger average orders (both in terms of price and food volume) while also offering full service.

Of course we served way less people. Say 50-60 on a given day. But obviously it takes more effort to serve beverages (no self-serve soda machine, hand-made cocktails, water refills, etc.) and food (actually cooking food instead of just rewarming and assembling things). I would argue the average foot speed of those working was probably double an average fast food restaurant.

That makes sense. I had erroneously interpreted the bolded comment as referring to customers instead of employees.

And I don't doubt it regarding the foot speed, but there's also inherently way more walking distance being traveled in a full service environment.

In the back of house, a.k.a. kitchen, you might be surprised. TAG specifically (RIP) had a kitchen smaller than your average McDonald's kitchen. When I look back at it, it was amazing what we pumped out of that kitchen.

[webny99]

Another "policy" thing that tends to create issues: return policies.

In my mind "return" is pretty much synonymous with "headache", so I try my best not to have to return things personally, sometimes even just opting to keep some low value item rather than deal with the hassle of returning it.  But I used to deal with returns quite a bit at my job, so I got pretty familiar with the ins and outs of various company's return policies.

I recall one instance that left me very frustrated at the time: we had placed an order that wasn't needed and discovered the error after the order had shipped, but before it arrived. The smartest move probably would have been to reject the shipment, but that wasn't communicated in time, so the order arrived and was signed for, and I had to go through the standard returns process as a result. That company has a flat 20% restocking fee on all returns. We were a long time customer and it was high value product; that seemed like a lot of money, so I asked if they could reduce it to 10%. They replied and said they could not offer 10% per policy. I replied (summarizing here) that 20% of that dollar value was completely unreasonable for a single box shipment, and that I wouldn't guarantee we would pay the restock fee. Then the sales manager got involved and said that they appreciated our business and were working to improve our account pricing, but they couldn't budge on the 20% restocking fee. I was pretty annoyed, but 80% back was a whole lot better than nothing, so 20% it was, and we continued to do business together.

Looking back on it now, even though I felt the policy was unreasonable, and even though making an exception for a long time customer would have been more than fair, I do begrudgingly respect them for sticking to their policy. And, in time, I would have felt the same way about the barbershop cancellation fee, because creating policies and sticking to them is something that large and successful businesses tend to do.

[kphoger]

Another "policy" thing that tends to create issues: return policies.

I used to work in the returns warehouse of a Christian publishing company.  It had once been a small company, but then one of its publications became a New York Times bestseller, then a sequel was published that was also a bestseller, and so on.  Big expansion, new warehouse built, but nobody in the company had ever played ball in the big leagues before.

One of the company's most important customers was the middleman distributor for Wal-Mart, to whom they made an 'in stock' guarantee.  That's around the time I was hired.  Here's how I remember it going:

1.  They buy $100,000 worth of product, then put Wal-Mart price stickers on the cover of every item.

2.  They later send $80,000 work of the product back as returns and issue themselves $80,000 of credit.

3.  They order another $100,000 worth of product.  This process repeats.

4.  After a few days or weeks, depending on backlog, we in the warehouse scan each item individually into the system as a return, and sort it depending on condition.

5.  The Wal-Mart stickers are impossible to remove, so most every book ends up being sorted as 'damaged'.  The damaged books from this NYT bestseller series now accumulate by the pallet, but new ones still need to be printed for new orders.

6.  We send our total returns amount to accounting, who attempts to square the amount against the credit amount that the customer has already given themselves.

7.  With help from a coworker who likes playing around in Microsoft Access for fun, I develop a database to make our end of this process more transparent.

8.  The customer disputes our numbers.  I find out that the way they assign their own dollar amount is by taking the average weight of all our products, counting how many products they put in each pallet of returns, doing the multiplication, and then subtracting the average weight of the pallet itself.

9.  I call BS, because the weight of each pallet on the trucking company's bill of lading is listed as the same weight (let's say 1,800 pounds), every shipment, every day, no matter what's inside.  I also determine that their average pallet weight is off by dozens of pounds.  None of that matters, of course, because this is how they play the game, and it's their game and their rules.

10.  The number of pallets of returned books begins to exceed our warehouse capacity, so we but a new warehouse offsite and start making truck runs over there every week.  We lease half of the warehouse space to another company, which actually generates profit to our company because it's more than what we paid for the warehouse.

11.  Every few months, we send a few truckloads of these books to an industrial shredder in Tennessee.

12.  We eventually get wind that someone is paying the shredder to load the books onto their own truck instead of shredding them, then that someone sells them out from under us for cheap.  So now someone from our company flies down there each time to basically just watch and make sure they actually get shredded.

[webny99]

Wow, kphoger. I remember you sharing at least part of that experience previously, but I think that's even more insane than I remembered.

One of the company's most important customers was the middleman distributor for Wal-Mart, to whom they made an 'in stock' guarantee.  That's around the time I was hired.  Here's how I remember it going:

1.  They buy $100,000 worth of product, then put Wal-Mart price stickers on the cover of every item.

2.  They later send $80,000 work of the product back as returns and issue themselves $80,000 of credit.

3.  They order another $100,000 worth of product.  This process repeats.

What was the point of this process? I assume it was some sort of work-around to fulfill the stock guarantee while not actually paying for the stock, but I can't imagine how this is simpler or more effective than just stocking up to a certain level and placing new orders as the stock is used.

5.  The Wal-Mart stickers are impossible to remove, so most every book ends up being sorted as 'damaged'.  The damaged books from this NYT bestseller series now accumulate by the pallet, but new ones still need to be printed for new orders.

Why not just play along and fill new orders with the returned books? Even if they insist on returning them, you'd think they'd actually prefer to receive the stickered books, since it would save them the process of stickering the new ones.

[kphoger]

What was the point of this process? I assume it was some sort of work-around to fulfill the stock guarantee while not actually paying for the stock, but I can't imagine how this is simpler or more effective than just stocking up to a certain level and placing new orders as the stock is used.

I'm not entirely sure.  I don't know if it's an artifact of their being such a huge network, or a way of rotating warehouse stock to ensure they're always supplying their stores with newer product, or what.

Why not just play along and fill new orders with the returned books? Even if they insist on returning them, you'd think they'd actually prefer to receive the stickered books, since it would save them the process of stickering the new ones.

We actually talked them into that for a while.  As I recall, it didn't last long.

[webny99]

2.  They later send $80,000 work of the product back as returns and issue themselves $80,000 of credit.

...
6.  We send our total returns amount to accounting, who attempts to square the amount against the credit amount that the customer has already given themselves.

Talking B2B here, I generally think that customers giving themselves credit is tacky and poor business practice.

But there are some exceptions. I work with a company that takes such an insanely long time to process credits - whether for returns, pricing issues, or anything else - that it could be two or three seasons from now by the time they get around to it. At a certain point, the admin time chasing down the credits to no avail and having them outstanding on all the billing reports for months on end simply wasn't worth it, so we started just immediately taking the credits ourselves and letting them figure it out. Then when an actual credit from that company shows up in the snail mail months later, it's a quick double check to make sure it's case closed and straight to file 13. And to my knowledge, we've had zero issues doing things that way. They do sometimes ask for more information, which we are of course willing and able to provide, but there's been no major or unsolvable disputes.