Chapter

16

Building Your Clientele

In This Chapter

As a seasoned marketer, when I discuss customer behavior I tend to repeat the old saw, “You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Marketing, promotions, and advertising creates buzz about your truck and gets people to show up, but it doesn’t turn them into customers.

What will build your clientele long term is the product and the experience people have when they visit your truck. It’s your job to under-promise and over-deliver on your customer’s expectations. They should leave your truck blown away by the incredible food and service they received. That’s the way to not only create customers who will spend money there regularly, but also get the best advertisement money can’t buy. The word of mouth spread by a satisfied customer is pure gold when it comes to establishing a new truck.

Developing your clientele isn’t about being in the newspaper or sending out Tweets. It’s about delivering your customer’s desires and surpassing their expectations. Most people know exactly what to do to make someone feel valued or special, but they don’t go out of their way to actually do it. This chapter is about establishing a strategy to build and maintain your clientele by putting systems in place and doing that special thing that your customer remembers, thereby creating loyalty and repeat business, which are the lifeblood of any entrepreneurial venture.

Feedback: Listen to the People Who Feed You

Have you ever watched a person or business make all the wrong decisions? We all seem to have the ability to see what’s wrong with someone or something else, but when it comes to our own issues we just don’t get it. The same thing is true when it comes to our own businesses. And in the case of a food truck, you don’t have years to come to the realization that you need help. Your business will flourish or fail based upon your ability to quickly accept and implement feedback.

There’s no one better able to give you feedback than your customers and employees. These people are eating, drinking, and/or working at your truck all the time, and they know exactly what they like and don’t like. The key is for you to make it comfortable for them to share this information with you. Why? Because you want to be the best, and you become the best by listening.

Tip

In his book Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business (HarperCollins, 2006), famed restaurateur and service expert Danny Meyer says, “While the customer is not always right he/she must always feel heard.” Meyer says his business strategy is built on both good service, defined as technical delivery of the product, and “enlightened hospitality,” which is how the delivery of that product makes its recipient feel. These are words to run your truck by.

Naturally, all the feedback you receive won’t be useful. Some of it won’t make sense or be practical based on your business structure. After all, you know the intricacies of your business better than anyone else. The key is to approach all feedback with the most open mind possible. Always think to yourself, what can I do to best deal with this particular point? Sometimes the answer will be nothing, but more often than not you can make your truck more efficient or enjoyable because you chose to hear what that employee or customer had to say.

Now that you know its value, the question becomes how to get honest and valuable feedback without negatively affecting your customers’ experience. The most effective ways I’ve found are truck conversation, feedback cards, and online dialogue.

Truck Conversations

Truck conversations consist of communicating with your clientele to garner as much information as you can. In more simple terms, ask questions. I talked in Chapter 2 about how important it is for you to be a personality, to interact with your clients. This is just another reason why it’s so critical to your success. You can interact with your customers in a variety of ways; I detail a few ways here:

Observe and converse. Observe your clients. When you see that they’re enjoying themselves, say hello and introduce yourself. Let them know that you value having them as your customers and ask them what’s been good about their experience with your truck. And if you notice someone who doesn’t look pleased, introduce yourself as well. Do everything in your power to fix the problem and listen to what made their experience negative. Thank them for their feedback whether or not you plan to use it. Then get cracking to make sure your truck is the best it can be.

Infuse positivity. It’s amazing how you can turn an okay experience into a great one with a bit of positivity and enthusiasm. Say something like, “Isn’t that the best meatball you ever had in your life?” This kind of comment makes customers feel special and opens them up to thinking the way you do: like attracts like.

Open-ended questions. Don’t ask customers anything that can be answered by a simple yes or no. Ask questions that require a more extensive answer to get to their personal preferences.

Listen attentively. Don’t look at your phone or other customers or allow yourself to be distracted in any way. Fully engage the person giving you feedback and respect the time he’s spending for your benefit. By giving the customer your full attention he’ll know it means something to you and take it more seriously.

Names and faces. Make an effort to recognize your customers and try to speak to them by name. Recognition will make them feel special and more comfortable with you. Building a relationship with your customers will lead to a regular dialogue, and dialogue leads to honest feedback.

Feedback Cards

Feedback cards are another great way to garner information. I recommend using a postcard-size card and with no more than five easy-to-answer questions that customers can respond to by rating an item—service or food quality—from 1 through 10. Their experience at your truck is going to be brief; customers won’t have a lot of time to reply. At the bottom of the card, have a couple of lines for suggested improvements. You can do this playfully by saying something like “Help us help you” or “How can we better satisfy your cravings?” Customers should feel like they’re speaking to someone who cares and that their feedback is valued.

Leave a box, with a pen inside, right next to the window of your truck, to make it easy for customers to drop in the cards upon completion. The best time to offer the cards is while the customer is waiting for his food or with the package when you make a delivery. Expect only 50 percent of your customers to fill them out, and don’t get discouraged by negative results. Use the feedback to get better.

Online Dialogue

Another way to get customer feedback is through the online dialogue you and your customers are having about your truck. People will place reviews of your truck on websites like Yelp, Google, and Urban Spoon. These reviews will be invaluable to you in monitoring your progress as a business. You need to be aware of what your customers are saying about you and then register on the sites so you can respond. Always respond positively to reviews, good or bad. Thank customers for taking the time to review your business, making sure they know their voice has been heard. Invite them to e-mail you at your business address, and if they follow up, invite them in for a special visit or event at the truck. Going the extra step is what makes the difference between a good truck and a great one.

Expect additional chatter through social media applications like Facebook and Twitter. When customers post good or bad comments, you should always reply. A simple thank you, with a contact address for further customer service, is meaningful and will make the customer feel heard. Even more valuable than the customer service element will be the information you garner by monitoring feedback and applying it to your day-to-day operation.

Responding to Criticism and Praise

Criticism and praise are part of any hospitality business. Some customers will think you’re the best truck in history, others will leave dissatisfied, and many will land somewhere in between. The key to your business is to do everything in your power to make sure the majority of customers leave happy. This will lead to their becoming your regulars. Be the best at what you do, and you shouldn’t have any problems.

Truck Tales

In 2007 famed restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow’s new restaurant Kobe Club got a terrible review from New York Times food critic Frank Bruni. Chodorow decided to take out a full-page ad in the paper contesting the review and vowing to start a blog aimed at “reviewing the reviewers.” Because of this response Chodorow continued to receive bad food press for years and brought the bad review to the attention of thousands more readers. What’s the moral of this story? If someone chooses to negatively review you and you believe you didn’t deserve it, prove him or her wrong through your actions. Make your truck a success, and all the criticism in the world won’t make any difference.

How do you respond when someone tells you that you’re great or, more unpleasant, when they say you stink? Even more crucial, what should you do when a critic writes something negative about you on a food blog or in the local newspaper?

Take all reviews, praise, and criticism, with an open mind. If someone writes something positive about your business, thank them, put your head down, and keep doing a good job. If someone writes something negative, evaluate, put your head down, and make any adjustments that you believe are necessary. When people are reviewing or critiquing you, it means you’re doing something right. You have people’s attention and, especially in the Internet age, they’re going to express their opinions.

The best way to get a positive review is to run an awesome truck. Great food, intuitive service, and a well-kept truck lead to great reviews. But even then you can’t ensure that everyone will love it. If you’re lucky enough to receive a good or even great review, don’t let it go to your head. Satisfaction is a disease, the beginning of the end for any business. Never let your guard down and always aspire to be better tomorrow than you were the day before.

Truck Tales

The Street Vendor Project began the Vendy Awards in 2004 to raise money for the organization and protection of the rights of street vendors. The annual event attracts thousands of visitors to Governors Island to vote on the best food trucks and street vendors in New York and New Jersey. Awards include Rookie of the Year, the People’s Taste, and the best dessert truck, among others. A Vendy award is a badge of honor among street vendors and offers incredible exposure in the food press.

Gathering and Listening to Employee Feedback

Who knows your business better than your customers? Your employees. They see all aspects—front, back, middle, and side—of your operation. Speak with them as much as possible to get feedback on what’s going well and what could use improvement. Make time to formally sit one-on-one with every staff member at least once a month. And speak with them as often as possible informally as well. Allowing communication to flow freely leads to surprising solutions and ideas from the most unlikely sources.

Here are some tips to assist in establishing an open environment:

Create a manager’s log where all issues and problems are noted during operations. This record of any and all issues ensures that you’ll remember to resolve them and can protect you if more serious issues arise.

Schedule a weekly staff meeting to discuss important plans and allow employees to vent. Meetings can be invaluable to an organization. Employees will do a better job if they feel free to express their concerns and feel vested in the decision-making process.

Allow for anonymous suggestions. Some employees don’t feel comfortable speaking up, so create a suggestion box for people to share their thoughts anonymously.

Understanding Your Customers

Your customers are complex beings, not too different from yourself. Once you’ve identified who they are, it’s important that you make an effort to understand what drives them. Why do they eat at your truck? What is it about your product that attracts them? What can you do to make the experience better for them? What would make them visit you more often or spend more money each time they do?

By taking the time to understand your customers, your business will be more effective at servicing their needs.

Observing and Listening

There’s no better way to understand your customers than to observe their behaviors and listen to what they say. People are creatures of habit, and watching what they do will give you an eye into what motivates them. Their conversations and comments can give you even more insight into what they’re thinking and feeling.

If a customer says “I love your food so much, but I can’t eat here every day because I’ll get fat,” that might mean you should be including healthier options on your menu. Or if someone shows up with napkins every time they eat at your truck it could mean your food is too messy, or that you need to supply a better napkin. Whatever it is, you’ll gain tremendous insight into your customers by listening and observing.

Here are some additional things to consider:

What do your customers have in common that drives them to your brand? Does everyone who eats at your truck love football? Or are they all talking about that new show on HBO? Figuring out their similarities will help you cater to your customers more accurately.

Review your menu mix. Figure out what your customers are eating and not eating. Once you have that information, you can speak to some of them to get deeper insights into why they choose one item over another. Maybe they love your meatball hero, but the portion is too large, so they choose the burger instead.

Truck Tales

To help launch HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, the company created a food truck serving food themed around it. The network hired top chef Tom Colicchio and served food modeled after different regions in the show, made from rabbit, duck, squab, and venison. The truck parked in different locations in Manhattan and Los Angeles and rotated menus by Chef Colicchio daily.

What is the perceived price-value relationship of your truck by your customers? Do they think your truck is a good deal or too highly priced? Are they looking for a lunch or dinner special? Maybe your portions need to be larger or smaller.

Anticipating Their Desires

Reactivity is a recipe for disaster. Food trucks—and businesses in general—must be proactive to be successful. Once you understand your customers, you’ll be able to look at the larger environment and anticipate what they might want. If you’re selling hamburgers and you read in a food magazine that sliders are the next big food trend, maybe you should add them to your menu. Or if you’re a juice truck and you realize all your friends are drinking coconut water, maybe you should be offering that item as well. Keep your eyes open for opportunities, and then think of the best ways to capitalize on them.

What’s important is that you be aware. Just because your truck is successful today doesn’t mean it’ll still be a hit tomorrow. Doing research, visiting trade shows, and shopping your competition’s trucks will keep you ahead of the game.

Beep! Beep!

Just because your competition lowers their prices or begins offering an alternative item doesn’t mean you should do the same. Take the time to analyze every situation. Make a list of the positives and negatives of any decision and then make educated guesses. The effects of your choices are cumulative, meaning they increase as you make more of them. Take the time to make the best decisions for your truck’s future.

Exceeding Expectations

When customers come to your truck, they’re expecting a certain level of food, service, and treatment. The better you’re doing as a business, the higher your customers’ expectations will be. It’s your job to exceed their expectations every time. To do that you must make every guest’s experience personal.

When I walk into my local coffee shop in the morning, the guy at the counter makes my cup the way I like it without me even asking. It makes me feel like a king. You can do that for your customers, too, by listening to each one’s likes and dislikes and committing them to memory. Do everything in your power to ensure that your customers get what they want when they visit you. Some truck owners do it by keeping lists of their best customers’ preferences. Each time one of them comes up to the truck, the operator knows what he usually orders. Simply saying, “You want your usual side of spicy sauce?” is a great way to exceed a customer’s expectations. The best operators do this every time, and this attention to detail is clearly displayed by their growing profits.

Great customer service is the exception, not the rule. You would think with so many hospitality businesses out there most would be great, but the truth is that the majority are mediocre.

Here are some simple things that can help you be the best:

Go the extra mile for your customers. Amuse their kids, give them an extra side of fries, or get them that soda they always talk about. Do anything you can to make them leave your truck happy.

Give them something to talk about. Customers love to tell their friends how they’re treated like VIPs at a truck. Give them an off-the-menu special taco you keep on the side; they’ll tell everyone how amazing it is. Or tell them about an upcoming food truck festival before the news is released to the public. Make them feel like insiders.

If a customer has been waiting in line for a while, offer them a free item for their next visit. Also, use social media to engage your customers. For example, use a password to get a special discount or item on any given day.

Tip

Roy Choi, the Kogi chef, runs nightly specials on all his trucks. Some of the more famous ones include Barbeque Sliders and the Venice Beach Vegan Taco. Specials drive the check average up, keep people interested, and get rid of excess inventory before it spoils.

Find out what they love and then use the information. If your best customer loves baseball, get him a hat from the local team. Or if one of your customers always talks about a special type of hot sauce, show him you listen and get him a bottle.

Show your thanks. E-mail or send thank-you cards to your best customers. It’s amazing how much a personal note means to people.

Offer preview tastings. Include your customers in your process: let them try the different items you’re testing before you add them to your menu. It makes them feel vested in your truck and will provide you great feedback.

Making Amends: Service Recovery

The service recovery paradox is that a service or product failure can offer the chance for a business to receive higher customer satisfaction than if the problem had never occurred.

I promise you, no matter how good you are, you and your employees will make mistakes. The secret to the hospitality business is how you recover from them. Every negative customer service situation is your chance to make a customer for life by quickly and effectively fixing things.

Let’s say juice falls off the counter of your truck and spills on a woman’s T-shirt. Service recovery would dictate that you quickly make her another juice for free and buy her a new T-shirt. I guarantee she’ll never buy juice from another truck.

Service recovery is the way to turn angry people into loyal customers who will tout your virtues to their friends.

Strategies for Earning Customer Loyalty

Events and frequent dining cards are the best ways to encourage customer loyalty on a food truck.

Events. Once you’re no longer the new kid on the block, it’s important to have special events that encourage people to return to your truck and give them something to talk about. After you’ve been operating for six months to a year, try to have a special event once every three months. If you have a taco truck, you can host a gathering at a local park with music and all-you-can-eat tacos. Such events will not only garner press coverage, they will also differentiate you from competing taco trucks.

Frequent dining cards. Frequent dining cards are a great way to get customers to return to your truck regularly. Customers love to know that their tenth lunch will be free. It’s the perfect motivator, and if you’ve ever had a card like this you know that there’s a certain satisfaction in getting it punched. Customers will be carrying that card around, and every time they go for their wallet, there you are.

You’ll have to make sure your employees actively encourage customers to use them. The cards need to be an integral part of the check-out process, and you must honor the commitments you make. Nothing would be worse than promising a customer something and then letting them down.

Your frequent dining card should be about the size of a business card. It should have your logo on one side and boxes or stars on the other. The boxes or stars will denote how many times they have to eat before they get their reward. Each time they dine, the card should be punched with a hole puncher or stamped with a custom stamp. Coming up with a unique name for your rewards program such as “dining all star” or “meatball maven” is a good way to keep people interested.

Gathering Contact Information

As I discussed earlier in the book, it’s critical to gather your customers’ contact information. The more information you’re able to garner from your clientele, the less dependent you’ll be on external sources of advertisement and marketing.

Before the launch of your truck, you need to have systems in place to gather and segment e-mail addresses and Twitter followers. The best way to do it is by including your website address and social media application connections on all materials related to your truck. After you’ve driven traffic to your site, you need to capture the information. Front and center on your website, you should have an e-mail submission form and Twitter follower button.

I highly recommend providing incentives to the customers to submit their contact information by offering a monthly sweepstakes for a gift certificate or other reward that involves your truck. In the marketing business, these are referred to as calls to action. You should never activate any of your marketing campaigns without a call to action—something that causes the customer to act. Providing incentives for the customer to take action allows you to clearly measure the effectiveness of your campaign and get your client to sample your truck.

Tip

Companies like Wufoo.com will help you organize the information customers submit on your website by putting it into an Excel file. Once the information is in Excel, it is much easier to break down by location and other relevant points. Unleashing the power of this information will make you a more effective marketer.

You can also gather your customers’ information through direct contact with them. One way to get this information is to have a container where people can drop their business cards to enter a contest of some sort. The other way is to just ask. If you’re at the window, tell customers that you want to keep them informed of promotions and your truck location. Most of the time they’ll be honored to be asked to be part of something meaningful by the owner; people like to feel special, so make them feel great and build your business in the process.

The Least You Need to Know