Handling angry guests

Josh Hurst has encountered his share of angry guests throughout his time at Pies & Pints, a beer and pizza chain with locations in the midwest, interior east, and south.

Through all the downs (Covid) and ups, Josh and his team have relied on the same 5-step process to deal with customers. Here it is:

1. First: don't get defensive or accusatory. You just need to understand this guest is upset and for them that feeling is very real. Whether it's justified or not isn't relevant.
2. Apologize. A genuine "I'm sorry this happened" can go a long way—for Pies & Pints, a sincere apology redirects the interaction to positive about 75% of the time. (Admittedly, prior to Covid this % was higher.)
3. Ask the guest: what can we do to make things right?
4. Follow through on what they request. Give them a new pizza on the house. Discount their meal. Provide a gift certificate for a future visit. It's almost certainly worth it, since they'll be more likely to return.
5. After the dust settles, figure out what went wrong on your side. And when you figure it out, use the situation as a teaching opportunity (not a punitive one).

Check out the interview clips for more from Josh about angry guests, including how complaints are different in the post-Covid world (e.g. oddly, scams have become more common!):

❓ Why?

Because there are QR Menu flows that suck and actually make things worse for customers.

To be clear, we're talking here about the experience of what happens once a customer scans a QR code. I.e. you can have a bad QR Menu experience even if everything pre-scan is great (you have enough codes, staff is good about introducing them, etc.).

Here are the 3 biggest offenders of a bad post-scan QR Menu experience:

1. Customers are brought to a PDF. Hands down this one's the worst. PDFs are hard for customers to deal with because in order to enlarge the menu (almost always necessary on a phone), they have to pinch to zoom. This sucks.
2. The menu doesn't include item descriptions. It's tough to stay on top of website content, so businesses just include item names. This means the menu doesn't do any selling. As with a paper menu, it's best practice to include descriptions for everything you sell.
   
3. The menu doesn't include all items. Updating website content can be time consuming, so instead of having to update every time a beer or cocktail changes, folks just say something like "Ask your server about our rotating drafts." People just aren't gonna ask.

All of these harm sales because it makes the ordering process harder, when you should be making it easier.

❓ How to do it?

You could create and stay on top of a manual QR Menu experience. Here's what that could look like:

1. Create a menu page on your website. Most website builders offer an easy-to-use and professional-looking menu template that allows you to avoid using a PDF, meaning your menu will be mobile-friendly.
2. Add your menu content. Be sure to include all your menu items and descriptions.
3. Grab the URL from that page and create a QR Code for it. There are many options for this. Here's one.
4. Distribute your QR Code everywhere in your business and train servers and bartenders on introducing it to guests.
5. Every time your menu changes, go to your website and make the updates. You don't want the menu to be outdated, and you want to make sure you're including everything on your menu, including descriptions.

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