Once upon a time, I used to say that to be a successful restaurant, you needed to excel in at least one of these three categories.   Food Service Ambience   But, back then, pre-Brexit, people were more forgiving, because eating out was cheaper, drinking alcohol was still cool, and we didn’t have weight loss drugs.         So now what?  Now F&B businesses need to ace at all three and offer more besides.

We have taken on a new client who has medical aesthetic clinics.  Before we even managed to fulfil our first visit, we discovered that WhatsApp enquiries weren’t being responded to and phone calls were not being picked up or followed-up. Our client was pretty disappointed. But they shouldn’t be:  Humans are, in general, pretty lazy. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t have invented farming and the internet. That neither have, in the long game, reduced work levels

I ate at the Wolseley on Thursday night. My very great friend Meghan Ridsdale booked us in. She knows every eatery in London and is a reliable source of recommendation for anyone’s budget, taste, styling, and expectations.      A fabulous building, incredibly busy, great service, and with a modestly priced ‘something for everyone’s taste’ menu.  Anyway, the building was designed as a car showroom for Wolseley in 1921 and is very ‘Agatha Christie’. It then became

Using online reviews for feedback is important and inexpensive but relying only on this data (because it is cheaper than mystery shopping) will not alert you to everything you need to know.        The nail bar I go to, took on a new trainee six months ago. She was terrible!  And, despite much training from her colleagues, which was painful to watch, she didn’t improve. Luckily for me she wasn’t trusted to do

Why negative feedback hurts: Let’s start with the emotional reaction to why negative feedback hurts. Generally, people associate ‘feedback’ with ‘criticism’. “Criticism is a gift” I hear from people, when I tell them what I do, but the thing is, I know that most of us fear it and certainly no one looks forward to receiving it!   ‘Criticism’ is almost always a complaint about our character or worth or work and it’s a challenge

In short mystery shopping works by delivering feedback to the front lines, covering all learning styles and motivating change. Well, it does when it’s delivered by Silent Customer because it’s our values that underpin the success of our mystery shopping services.         As a child, my mother always told me I had the ‘attention span of a gnat’. My maths teachers said I ‘just needed to apply myself ‘ and my grandfather threatened me with the