Posted by Jon Cook, CUES editorial intern
One to three times a week, I venture out of the office for lunch at one of the places close by.
The dining options include the usual chain restaurants available in most trendy suburbs and business parks across the U.S., Qdoba and Panera for example.
Today, I opted for Qdoba; the service quick, the food decent, and the price even "decenter."
The clientèle was what one would expect at noon during the week: casually dressed business men and women, a few dudes in suits, and mothers wrangling their small children.
What I didn't expect, for some odd reason, was the poor service and "poorer" atmosphere I found there.
I looked around the establishment and saw more dirty tables than clean. I actually had trouble finding a clean table. Other customers, sharing my helpless look, scanned for the least dirty place to sit, mentally tallying the number of loose beans or dollops of drying salsa, wondering why they didn't go somewhere else for lunch.
That's not all ... by any measure. Because of the table issue, I started taking note of other faults. The music: too quiet. The windows: grubby. The people taking orders: speaking under their breath, not directly to me.
I noticed one aspect of the service was off, and it made me take note and evaluate the rest of the aspects of service and note any fault I could.
While the food was of the quality I expected, I still left the place feeling I didn't get my money's worth.
How can CUs make sure their members don't walk out of a branch feeling similarly? Keep control of customer service. If you can't provide personalized service, make sure every member coming in the door has the same service and experience and, most importantly, make sure their experience is positive. It doesn't take much to please the average customer, I promise.
Here is what I expect in customer service:
- Make eye-contact and greet me.
- Keep an organized and clean establishment.
- Don't rush me but make the service quick.
- Act like you want me there and want me to come back.
My guess is that had the Qdoba employees cared I was there when I ordered my food I would have overlooked the rest of the problems and left not feeling I was robbed of something. I might even plan to go back there sometime soon.
The moral of my diatribe? I will be going to Panera next week. The lady there knows my name (it's the same as her son's) and my order, even though she has only waited on me twice.
As CUES Editor Lisa Hochgraf put it in a July Nexus Connection post exploring how CUs should treat regulars, "credit unions can't make a deposit or a withdrawal before members approach the counter, but surely they can do something to treat 'regulars' right."
