Title – Pubs fall very short in National Customer Satisfaction SurveySource – BIIAB & Retail Eyes
Date – 30th October 2009
The BIIAB recently released figures from the National Customer Satisfaction Survey carried out by market research company Retail Eyes into customer satisfaction in various sectors.
The figures make for disturbing (if not unexpected) reading for the pub sector.
The figures suggest that only 6% of respondents said pubs offer good standards of customer service.
The hotel industry fared better with 52% (of 6523 respondents) ranking the industry as the best for customer service. Restaurants scored only 23% with supermarkets at 11%.
Tim Ogle, chief executive of Retail Eyes said: “Some of the things we found that turn off customers the most about drinking in pubs and bars are tables with empty glasses or dirty plates left out, having to wait at the bar and bar staff that aren’t interested in engaging.”
The UK is not synonymous with great customer service, walk down any high street and the number of outlets offering excellent customer service are heavily outnumbered by those offering indifferent or poor service to customers. We have developed an attitude in many sectors where businesses operate to meet employees needs rather than focussing on customers. Employees are often only trained to understand their particular role rather than the customers expectation.
The pub sector is clearly struggling in these more challenging times, I am often asked by people who are starting new businesses if it a sensible time to come into such a depressed industry? My answer in always unequivocally yes, now is a perfect time. The price of ‘entry’ is depressed and there are some bargain properties out there worth purchasing / leasing for anyone looking to buy into the industry.
It’s true that competition is fierce; some parts of the industry are discounting heavily offering price sensitive customers a glut of choices, but the one area where there is still plenty of room for new businesses to flourish is a business providing excellence in customer service.
I write this as if it is the easiest thing in the world, because I believe providing excellence in customer service is not difficult, but only if you are prepared to develop your business round your customers rather than round yourself or your employees.
Key decisions in this process will be who you employ, how you train them and developing an effective management style. All three have to be in place to be successful in this area.
I have always also adopted the policy that employees have to have ownership of the business, in other words they have to have a vested interest in the success of the business rather than simply be salaried. This can be achieved in a number of ways; share schemes develop loyalty; pay and bonuses can work but such schemes must be proactively managed to ensure they are linked to service standards rather than just turnover; but the most effective does not require any additional costs and is achieved by employing and training employees with integrity whose reward is doing the best job they can and meeting agreed targets, this is the hardest to achieve and is wholly reliant on an excellent management style.
I think we have become complacent in this country, we expect certain things to be given to us on a plate (including pay and employment), success is defined by the financial reward rather than pride in the work you do and all too often we don’t value other opinions in a positive manner but rather see it as a criticism; in other words we are closed to change and new ideas, rather than embracing them.
I am not going to be telling anyone anything new when I say it is very important to regularly look at your business from a completely new angle, to see what your customers see; effectively from ‘outside the business’. This is one of the most difficult things to achieve as a manager and while most think they are doing this, the majority will be unwittingly ‘blinded’ by familiarity.
There are various ways to achieve this; you can employ consultants like us to come and look at your business and advise you on how to progress it; you can talk to your customers and ask for feedback (make sure you are asking ‘open’ questions, not yes / no questions and consider asking only for criticism not compliments as that will tell you how and in which areas you need to improve); or if you are the one in 1,000,000 who can be entirely impartial and detached you can do this yourself.
The point is, this is one of the most difficult aspects of management; successful managers are those who recognise this as a problem and find the solution. Asking for another opinion is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength.
Think about it this way. There are no businesses where every customer is entirely satisfied. So what about the customer who ‘is never happy’? They are the one you have to work hardest to please and then treat everyone the same way. Meeting the most difficult customer’s expectations will set standards high, improve overall customer service and set your business apart from others and on the road to success.
If only 6% of pubs offer good standards of customer service, just think of the potential of 94% of customers to pubs in your area who will consider your pub first, if you can get the service standards right…
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the Licensed Retail Sector to help them improve customer service standards. These include; BIIAB Award in Customer & Drinks Service (Licensed Hospitality) (ACDS) and the Award in Customer Service Excellence (Licensed Hospitality) (ACSE).
We also run statutory qualifications such as The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.
Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
Date – 30th October 2009
The BIIAB recently released figures from the National Customer Satisfaction Survey carried out by market research company Retail Eyes into customer satisfaction in various sectors.
The figures make for disturbing (if not unexpected) reading for the pub sector.
The figures suggest that only 6% of respondents said pubs offer good standards of customer service.
The hotel industry fared better with 52% (of 6523 respondents) ranking the industry as the best for customer service. Restaurants scored only 23% with supermarkets at 11%.
Tim Ogle, chief executive of Retail Eyes said: “Some of the things we found that turn off customers the most about drinking in pubs and bars are tables with empty glasses or dirty plates left out, having to wait at the bar and bar staff that aren’t interested in engaging.”
The UK is not synonymous with great customer service, walk down any high street and the number of outlets offering excellent customer service are heavily outnumbered by those offering indifferent or poor service to customers. We have developed an attitude in many sectors where businesses operate to meet employees needs rather than focussing on customers. Employees are often only trained to understand their particular role rather than the customers expectation.
The pub sector is clearly struggling in these more challenging times, I am often asked by people who are starting new businesses if it a sensible time to come into such a depressed industry? My answer in always unequivocally yes, now is a perfect time. The price of ‘entry’ is depressed and there are some bargain properties out there worth purchasing / leasing for anyone looking to buy into the industry.
It’s true that competition is fierce; some parts of the industry are discounting heavily offering price sensitive customers a glut of choices, but the one area where there is still plenty of room for new businesses to flourish is a business providing excellence in customer service.
I write this as if it is the easiest thing in the world, because I believe providing excellence in customer service is not difficult, but only if you are prepared to develop your business round your customers rather than round yourself or your employees.
Key decisions in this process will be who you employ, how you train them and developing an effective management style. All three have to be in place to be successful in this area.
I have always also adopted the policy that employees have to have ownership of the business, in other words they have to have a vested interest in the success of the business rather than simply be salaried. This can be achieved in a number of ways; share schemes develop loyalty; pay and bonuses can work but such schemes must be proactively managed to ensure they are linked to service standards rather than just turnover; but the most effective does not require any additional costs and is achieved by employing and training employees with integrity whose reward is doing the best job they can and meeting agreed targets, this is the hardest to achieve and is wholly reliant on an excellent management style.
I think we have become complacent in this country, we expect certain things to be given to us on a plate (including pay and employment), success is defined by the financial reward rather than pride in the work you do and all too often we don’t value other opinions in a positive manner but rather see it as a criticism; in other words we are closed to change and new ideas, rather than embracing them.
I am not going to be telling anyone anything new when I say it is very important to regularly look at your business from a completely new angle, to see what your customers see; effectively from ‘outside the business’. This is one of the most difficult things to achieve as a manager and while most think they are doing this, the majority will be unwittingly ‘blinded’ by familiarity.
There are various ways to achieve this; you can employ consultants like us to come and look at your business and advise you on how to progress it; you can talk to your customers and ask for feedback (make sure you are asking ‘open’ questions, not yes / no questions and consider asking only for criticism not compliments as that will tell you how and in which areas you need to improve); or if you are the one in 1,000,000 who can be entirely impartial and detached you can do this yourself.
The point is, this is one of the most difficult aspects of management; successful managers are those who recognise this as a problem and find the solution. Asking for another opinion is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength.
Think about it this way. There are no businesses where every customer is entirely satisfied. So what about the customer who ‘is never happy’? They are the one you have to work hardest to please and then treat everyone the same way. Meeting the most difficult customer’s expectations will set standards high, improve overall customer service and set your business apart from others and on the road to success.
If only 6% of pubs offer good standards of customer service, just think of the potential of 94% of customers to pubs in your area who will consider your pub first, if you can get the service standards right…
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the Licensed Retail Sector to help them improve customer service standards. These include; BIIAB Award in Customer & Drinks Service (Licensed Hospitality) (ACDS) and the Award in Customer Service Excellence (Licensed Hospitality) (ACSE).
We also run statutory qualifications such as The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.
Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
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