I love Nandos. Cheeky, funny advertising, reasonably priced high quality food with friendly staff who know their free range (happy before dying) chicken. Their irreverent brand positioning can be seen consistently from their salt shakers through to their TV advertising. Beautiful marketing.
The only thing that stops me eating a chicken pita everyday is their bathroom. Yep. Icky, dark, a bit on the nose, with a soap dispenser that is always broken. Brings out the Howard Hughes in me and I find myself wanting to bathe in Domestos regardless of consequences.
If I was brave and a tiny bit less sane, I would shout from the top of my lungs mid-restaurant ‘this is not the healthy, sunshine and good time you promised me Nandos and I AM REEEEEEAL MAD’. In business terms my Nandos bathroom aversion means lost revenue for Nandos of five pitas a week and probably more if I ever lose my mind completely, wear my bra on the outside and stand in the middle of their restaurant and shout the aforementioned grievance. After all who wants to eat Peri Peri Chicken with a crazy woman.
So how do you avoid making your clients worry about picking up amoebic dysentery from your bathroom? An exercise we do with clients is called ‘The Titanic’.
Slowly but surely work through every place customers come in contact with you to see if everything matches your brand positioning. If it doesn’t, start a program to fix that stuff up. It’s time consuming work, but way worth it.
It takes blood, sweat and tears to bring people into your business. Live up to your promised brand positioning and keep ’em coming back for more.
So unless you are a French restaurant that prides itself on being difficult, make good on what you’ve promised. Don’t be mean to your customers, don’t make them do lots of hard work that you could do for them (unless you are at a low price point), get back to them quickly and above all make sure your bathroom is spotless.
