I love that Arby’s has a bell you can ring if you get good service. It’s a fun and interactive way for customers to offer positive feedback. But they need more than a bell. Much more.
There are several problems with the bell.
First, not everyone who gets good service will ring it. Some people don’t want to draw attention to themselves. And others will ring the bell no matter what their service was like. They WANT to draw attention to themselves.
The bell is not an accurate way to gauge customer satisfaction. And it lacks something else, even more important. It offers no way to offer feedback if you had a lousy experience or a neutral experience.
So every time the bell rings in an Arby’s, people think someone got good service. But they have no way of knowing how many people got lousy service. Because there is no good feedback mechanism for them.
If Arby’s really wanted accurate feedback they’d have three buttons for people to push:
1. Press here if your got great service (it makes a loud applause noise)
2. Press here if your service was simply average (it plays a teenage voice saying “whatever“)
3. Press here is you received lousy customer service (you hear a loud penalty buzzer sound like this)
Just imagine if you made it this easy for your customers to offer feedback. What if anyone at anytime could easily and conveniently press the penalty buzzer and let everyone in the restaurant know they just got bad service?
How might that affect your customer service? Would it motivate everyone to deliver Amazing Service to every customer, every time? I think it would.
Sure you’d have a few knuckleheads who press the bad service button for fun. But you’d likely have just as many people who press the applause button for fun. So they false negatives and false positives would probably cancel each other.
What’s more important is you’d be giving your customers a fast, easy and convenient way to offer their live feedback. And your team would get that feedback immediately in a very memorable way.
And that kind of feedback is priceless.
How can you make it this easy and convenient for your customers to offer feedback?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been to Arby’s and thought this EXACT same thing. If I have my daughter I like her ring the bell. Another reason I don’t ring it is it’s usually right at eye level and ringing it rings right in your ear!
Arby’s could have 3 “suggestions box” where customers put their receipt in for Good, OK, Bad service. That way the Arby’s employee #, time, sale item and all that will be on the receipt. Or Arby’s could use the same method that Chick Fil A does and have a comment/survey at the bottom of the receipt. After doing the survey you get a coupon code to get a free sandwich. I love to make CFA runs for the office, because I usually take 3-4 orders and am bound to get one survey so I can score a free lunch. * Don’t tell my coworkers!
The key I think CFA uses is getting and keeping happy customers happy. Most people who aren’t major Arby’s customers won’t do the survey, but those that like/love Arby’s will and those are the people Arby’s needs to focus on bringing back time after time.
Hi Jason – The bells at Arby’s are neat but they really need to do more if they want useful customer feedback. Sounds like Chick-Fil-A has got it figured out.
Thanks for your comments.
Kevin