May I have the check, please?

Subjects: Referral, Returning customers
Principle: Lead your customers to the behavior you want

By now you start knowing me: I am really passionate about making as much money as possible for the same effort, providing a better service.

Along these lines, I got some pet peeves: one of my biggest is at restaurants.

After a great dinner, I ask for my check and duly pay (leaving a tip: how much? hehe, there will be a post in the future on "How to increase the tip amount using social psychology": amazing stuff, so easy to make more money that way, knowing the right principles...).

Then something really disappointing happens every time (actually, it does NOT happen...): the waiter/waitress brings me back the receipt and that's it... Whoa ! They are wasting a golden (and free) opportunity to hand me 2 or 3 business cards of the restaurant, asking me, with politesse, "Sir, we truly enjoy having guests like you. If you loved our food, we would appreciate if you could pass our business cards to your friends: in this way, we can invest more of our money into great food and a great environment, instead of paying for advertisement".

Nice, short, sincere request: it would work on me like a charm.

Downside: nothing, zippo, nada.

Actually, half an hour later, I have been asked about that restaurant, and I was unable to provide the phone number to the person asking me... One new customer lost...

The principle is often unknown to business owners: “People are silently begging to be led”, people want to be, in a courteous and respectful way, educated about what to do next. Sure, some guests will still look for the business card and go out of their way to get it, but why making their life difficult? Why not helping them making you a favor?

Did any of the readers ever found a restaurant doing this? If yes, let’s give some free advertisement to the smart restaurateur on our little forum !

Enjoy your dinner,

K in USA