Entrepreneurial Spirits
Entrepreneurial Spirits – an amusing story about why you shouldn’t abuse power, literally and metaphorically
An incident between the management of a Chinese Bar and four drunken customers, reported in the Times, reminded your correspondent of a lesson on customer care, taught to him during his university days (and what glorious days they were, where in a picturesque corner of Richmond Park, London in the mid-nineties, the price of a pint was less than a pound, and fellow learned colleagues & lecturers were convivial, relaxed & friendly).
The lesson given to your correspondent & his fellow colleagues was on the approach to customer care by the entrepreneur Richard Branson.
We were told that Richard had started out in business selling music records through mail order in the late 1960’s. In the early 1970’s there was a postal strike. To support his regular customers who wished to continue purchasing from him, he opened up premises.
Around the same time Richard also had difficulties in obtaining records for his customers from the Record companies that produce them. To overcome this difficulty he set-up his own record label and signed up musicians to this record label.
It was explained to this correspondent & his colleagues that by opening up a premise during the postal strike, Richard was able to continue in Business and by setting up his own record label he was able to expand this Business.
This correspondent has always fancied teaching to third level, and after reading about the management of Yinghuang Karaoke club’s approach to customer care, will pitch the idea of teaching their approach as a lesson in customer care to my old university.
This correspondent would explain (if given the opportunity) to future students the incident which occurred on the 2nd of November last. It happened in the Yinghuang Karaoke bar, which is in the Qi County, Henan province, China, where four customers had been doing some afternoon singing & drinking. When they had finished, they realised, they’d purchased too much beer as a last round, so decided to distribute what they bought to other customers in the bar. On observing this gesture the management of the bar moved towards the four customers (who were drunk) and objected to them acting in this way.
The consequence of the management’s objection was that the four customers went on a rampage, smashing up the rooms of the bar. To try and stop the four customers from their carnage crusade, the management of the Yinghuang offered them complimentary drinks. The consequence of offering these complimentary drinks was one of the four who works for the local electricity power plant, as a manager, rang up his place of work and demanded that the power grid where the Yinghuang was, be shut down. As a result the bar and 5,000 homes went without power for six hours.
This correspondent would end his lesson on customer care by emphasising the dangers of interfering with customer behaviour. Your correspondent would counsel (the young Bransons’ of the future) to support their customer’s needs & avoid if possible objections to their behaviour.
However if objections have to be made (customers can be unreasonable), under no circumstances should they back down and offer an olive branch. This peace offering could short a fuse (and not just theirs).
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