Guest Service 2.0 from Lenny's Sub Shop

Pretend you’ve just gotten home from a long day at work. Exhausted, your one goal in life is to microwave whatever is hiding in the back of your freezer and collapse on the couch. After fishing out a passable frozen dinner and waiting five minutes while cosmic rays bombard it, you make a sad discovery. Inside the black plastic tray is not the sesame chicken with noodles you expected but a greenish-gray mass of indistinguishable origin. What do you do? manyny would curse their luck and reach for the peanut butter, but for some it’s the start of a guest service encounter.

Guest service is one of the most important duties of any venture, no matter if it’s a $15 billion corporation or a mom and pop down the street. Although it’s impossible to keep everyone happy all the time, doing your best to keep guests content with your service and products helps create and maintain a positive brand image and increases word-of- mouth traffic.

In decades past, guest service has been handled over the phone, by mail or in person. Television not working? Call Sears. Chocolate malt milkshake not malty enough? Write a letter. Steak too bloody? Ask to speak with the chef.

The problems plaguing these methods are painfully familiar. They’re slow, unpleasant and, more often that not, rather inefficient. So why is it that so many companies still adhere to these tired and outdated forms of guest service?

Great guest service has always been a key part of the mission at Lenny’s Sub Shops, but recently they’ve taken the concept to the next level by using social media as another point of connection between the franchise and its loyal guests. By addressing guest service issues through Facebook, Lenny’s can solve problems more quickly and in a format many consumers are more comfortable with.

Take Robert, a Lenny’s guest from Arkansas. On a trip to his local Lenny’s, Robert was unsatisfied with a particular element of his trip and, instead of writing an email or calling corporate, he sent a message to Lenny’s Facebook page. Within 24 hours, he had a response from the Facebook page, apologizing for his bad experience and explaining the process by which the local manager would be informed of the situation. In addition, Lenny’s was able to send Robert some swag as an additional form of apology. The exchange clearly impressed Robert, who left a message saying, “I was thinking was never going to hear from somebody at Lenny’s again.”

Social media has many applications, but one of the newest and most promising is guest service. Lenny’s Sub Shops have blazed a trail by responding to guest complaints and questions through their Facebook page, transforming a traditionally slow and tedious process into a quick, efficient way to maximize guest satisfaction and build positive brand image.