Well usually.
We had a day last Fall when our staff just completely blew it. You, our valued customers, were standing outside waiting for ice cream while one poor soul waited on you and three others were in the back having a little party. At least four of you complained using the toll-free cool line or web surveys. The next day, I rolled out of bed and into the home office and saw the e-mails from HQ detailing how we had failed the day before. It's a horrible way to start the day, four complaints is more than we usually get in an entire year.
Then I spend time apologizing, and if you've ever experienced bad service at Bruster's Annapolis I apologize to you too.
I've been on the other end of this little service breakdown. Nothing irritates me more than having to wait to give somebody MY money. It's okay if I have to wait and I see all of the available staff trying their best to serve customers. But if I'm waiting and I see a bunch of staff chatting among themselves and NOT serving customers, boy am I mad. To the customer, it does not matter if those employees are off-duty, dealing with an important supply issue, handling an equipment emergency, or even on the phone trying to schedule other staff. I'm standing there seeing people NOT helping customers and I assume they don't care enough to come and take my money...so I'm mad.
I really don't want to operate a business where this happens and I came down pretty hard on the employees who did it on this day. I hope I never have to address it with my staff again. There are a lot of places to get ice cream and some are even pretty good. The best way we can win you over when the product is comparable is to offer service that is significantly better than the other guys.
I hope that you always get great service at Bruster's Annapolis and that you tell all of your friends. If you get bad service,
I hope you tell me, and only me. I'll do the best I can to fix it.
Thanks for being a loyal Bruster's customer.
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Dan Stay, together with his wife Margaret, is the Owner/Operator of Bruster's Annapolis. In addition, he is a husband, father of two, broadcast technician and computer nerd.