Chef Anthony Bourdain on Customer Loyalty and more

Scott Berkun linked to a piece which has snippets of an interview with Chef Anthony Bourdain.

Don’t know who Anthony Bourdain is? I’ve seen a few of his shows on the Travel Channel, and the wikipedia entry on him seems to be pretty adequate. Here are relevant snippets:

Bourdain was born in New York City and it was as a youth on holiday in France with his family that his love of food was kindled. He was on an oyster fisherman’s boat and tried his first oyster; ever since, he has traveled the world in search of food, good and bad, and has shared his results with the public.

Bourdain is an unrepentant smoker and drinker, and a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD.

Bourdain is also noted for his not-so- put downs of celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray (who is the butt of many jokes on No Reservations). Bourdain has recognized the irony of his transformation into a celebrity chef and has, to some extent, begun to qualify his insults. He has been consistently outspoken in his praise for chefs he admires, particularly Thomas Keller, Gordon Ramsay, Eric Ripert, Fergus Henderson, and Mario Batali.[6]

Here’s a straight shooter kind of guy. There’s quite a few interesting thoughts in the HBS piece, but here’s my favorite one:

Management by Fire a Conversation with Chef Anthony Bourdain - ‘Kitchen Confidential’ Chef’s Taste for Chaos - HBS Working Knowledge

Q: What makes customers loyal?

A: Well, obviously, quality and consistency. People feel betrayed if they come for a favorite dish and you’ve suddenly changed it. And they don’t want to be treated like idiots, like you tell them you’re giving them porcini and you substitute something else and hope they won’t notice. If every once in a while you have to pull a fast one for the common good, it is of course essential that you get away with it. When customers become regulars, even in fine restaurants, they’re looking for that familiarity, a crack in the veneer where they’re treated a bit differently, less formally.

A not-so-obvious thing often overlooked is that customers need to trust your intentions and your concept’s integrity—the sense that you know your product—and that it is the product you should be selling. So you’re not all over the place, serving pasta and French food and Mexican food and trying to be everything to everybody. A lot of places open up with a menu that’s floundering, because the owners are thinking, “What do people want?” Instead, they should be thinking something like, “We’re going to open a restaurant with a Gascony theme, and we’re going to concentrate on that area of France because this is what we love and do well.”

This applies in software and services as well. To serve your customer well, you must do something - and do it well. And then build on top of it. And repeat. Solidifying your reputation and your customer base at every step of the way. If you start off trying to do everything for everyone - you won’t succeed.

It seems fairly intuitive and common sense - but it’s surprisingly easy to mess up.