Question & Answer: Interview a manager, an owner, or a president of a business. Discuss with this person the strategies he or she uses to…..

I interviewed my friend Bharti Sharma who is a cafe owner in Kolkata,India. The cafe provides multi cuisine food ,great ambience and also serves alcohol. Food business is one where customer satisfaction is the most important criteria.

Strategies she uses to ensure customer satisfaction:

1) Well paid staff: The staff are the front line persons and if they greet the customers well,odds are the customer is more satisfied.

2)Mystery Shopper: She also hired a mystery shopper who would comment about the experience in the cafe. An owner cannot always keep an eye on everything hence when she knows what environment actually is there in the cafe when she is not around, she can improvise the existing flaws in the system.

3)Feedback: The guests are always asked to post a genuine feedback about the service on their website. This helps in understanding the cutomer’s likes and dislikes.

4)Discount: Customers data is mantained and the repeat customers are treated with discounts which helps in retaining them for longer time.

5)Complimentary drinks: As soon as the customer arrives, a complimentary drink is served free of cost which relaxes the mood of customer and increases the appetite.

6)Wifi: The cafe also offers free wifi facility which diverts customer attention until the food arrives.

Service quality enters into all the above strategies. The competition is intense and cutomers have little patience.Hence not only the food needs to be good but the service needs to be great and fast. All the above strategies ensure that the customer enjoys the food and the quality of service exceeds the customer satisfaction.Using constant feedbacks and greeting customers well ensure that service quality is enjoyed by the customer.

She uses the feedback received to measure the customer satisfaction.She is active on social networking sites and keeps posting on it regarding new food that is being served or any band that is about to perform in the cafe. The comments received really helps her to understand the needs of the cutomer and accordingly she plans further.