Your Customers Are Lying To You.
They do it every day and it’s costing you money.
The worst part is you’re the one that causes it.
Take dinner last night in a Texas Roadhouse restaurant.
I’m sitting at the bar, with the rep from one of main vendors.
As I’m holding the menu at arm’s length, because I’d left my reading glasses in my car, the manager came by and he suggested the “Fall off the bones” ribs. They’re fantastic, he said.
I took his “social proof” and ordered ‘em.
Just as they brought my full rack of ribs and some broccoli, another diner sat down to my right and we struck up a conversation. He was a salesman too and ate out a lot, like me.
He asked about the ribs and I told him they weren’t very good. I had just eaten some fantastic ribs at Jack’s BBQ in downtown Nashville a few days before and these paled in comparison to those.
I actually had to ask for a “bucket” of BBQ sauce to cover these with to try and make ‘em palatable.
He asked about the broccoli and I showed him the 3 small florets with the giant stalks, kinda opposite of what you’d really like to have.
The waitress/bartender then asked for his order and he chose to ignore my “social proof” and got a steak and ribs combo, but at least he got mashed potatoes, instead of thick-stalked broccoli 
When his food came, I watched closely as he took his first bite of ribs. Almost simultaneously, the waitress/bartender asked how his food was.
He asked for a “bucket” of BBQ sauce … just like I had to do.
Here’s How You Do It The Wrong Way
A few minutes later, the manager who’d pimped the ribs came by and asked my new friend about his ribs. “They’re fantastic!”, he said.
The manager said they always were and walked away with his smile.
I asked him why he lied to the manager.
“I just told him what he wanted to hear.”, he said.
This goes on all the time and like I said, you, like the manager, cause it.
Here’s How You Do It The Right Way
If that manager had really wanted to know what we thought, he could have offered to send us some ribs, without prejudicing our review with his opinion and asked us to be really honest with him as to what we thought.
As it turned out, the manager will go on believing a lie.
He won’t know that nobody likes his ribs.
His repeat business, for ribs, will be very low.
And he won’t have learned how to learn, which would make the difference between mediocrity and massive success.
Do you prejudice your customers comments or do you set them up to give you honest feedback?
Are you missing out on the very bit of info that would move your business from mediocre to massive?
If you need help determining, send me an email or leave me a comment below and I’ll help you help yourself.
EDIT 12/21/09 – Besides leaving a great comment, Glenn Ross wrote a great post about customers that lie.
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