The economic pressures on consumers, coupled with high gas and grocery prices, are cutting into a popular American pastime: Dining out.

While not all Coachella Valley restaurants are struggling, many are offering discounts to lure customers these days.

Fixed-price summer menus — usually three-course meals — are popping up around the Coachella Valley. Early bird specials, two-for-one deals, happy hours and “kids eat free” deals abound.

Some eateries are getting even more creative

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080718/BUSINESS/807180359/1003/business

Restaurant owners have a new item on their to-do menu: Come up with a Yelp strategy.

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Now, contrast this to the experience of a marketing manager from Johns Manville Corporation, who attended a speech of mine. My talk emphasized the value of customer feedback. I said that when customers invested their most precious asset, their time, to provide constructive feedback, this was evidence of true customer loyalty. This manager reported that he had recently been disappointed by a new Chick-fil-A restaurant near his Colorado home. A transplanted southerner, this fellow was a connoisseur of biscuits, and he felt that the biscuits at this new Chick-fil-A were not up to the standards he had enjoyed during his younger days in Georgia.

So he decided to send an email to Chick-fil-A headquarters noting the biscuit deficiency. In less than 24 hours he had received a return email - not some automated apology from headquarters with a coupon attached, but a real message from the store manager of the location with the biscuit problem. Unlike my hotel manager, who defended the phone pricing policy, the Chick-fil-A manager explained that getting the biscuits just right was more art than science - and was particularly challenging at the high altitudes of his Colorado store location. The manager did more than make excuses, though: he invited the Johns Manville exec to visit the restaurant on a convenient Saturday morning when they could schedule a biscuit-tasting. The restaurant managers said that would help him and his staff refine their process to ensure that their biscuits rated an outstanding score from customers.

Why does Chick-fil-A continue to grow and prosper when so many other fast-food concepts stall? For one thing, the company realizes that customer feedback is a precious gift, but only when front-line managers use it as an opportunity to learn. When front-line managers really care about listening and learning, they help convert customers into promoters. These customers won’t just come back for more and bring their friends, they will contribute even more of their precious time and creativity to help the business improve and grow.

http://netpromoter.typepad.com/fred_reichheld/2007/04/customer_feedba.html

Why no forum on Yelp for the businesses to respond to Yelpers?  Sure it would probably be a lot of “go F*&k yourselves” and it might escalate into some homicides but it would make damn good reading.

See responses below

http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-why-no-outlet-for-restaurateurs-to-respond

Chef Scott Conant of Alto Restaurant in New York says a lack of communication with staff and diners is one of the mistakes restaurant operators make and can be detrimental .

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Orr is in the dining room to hear the comments. He likes praise but finds it’s equally valuable to hear negative responses. “Then, I can try to fix [the problem],” he admits. In his opinion, diners who leave a restaurant without expressing a negative experience are more likely to discuss it with others — possibly with people who might be dissuaded to try or return to the restaurant. “Give them a soapbox to air their complaints in the restaurant, and they are less likely to gossip around the watercooler the next day,” Orr asserts. Customers who are satisfied that the chef cares about them are more likely to remember that positive reaction instead of the initial disappointment.

http://www.runningrestaurants.com/articles/20080618_15

Curry lovers in Birmingham are taking advantage of new technology to order their favourite dishes from an award-winning restaurant.

The Lasan Eatery, in Stratford Road, Hall Green, has introduced an SMS service for customers to have full access to its menu on their mobile phones and to order food to be delivered or for take away.

Hungry punters simply text the word ‘lasan’ to 80800 and receive the restaurant’s full menu on their phone. Then, they can choose their dishes in a similar way to when using e-commerce websites by adding to a shopping basket.

The outlet, run by Jabbar Khan, has already seen an uplift in business thanks to the service which is proving popular with customers. Jabbar said: “We have a reputation as a fine dining experience and have also won a string of awards as well as gaining a series of positive reviews from the local and national media.

Read the whole story here

I saw this on DIGG . Click here to read it

Starting with a relatively small list of customer e-mail addresses collected in various ways, Buckhead Life Restaurant Group sent an e-mail offering a $25 Ultimate Card as incentive for joining the company’s new e-mail program. Signing up for the program and receiving the incentive required guests to input information about themselves into an online database. It also encouraged viral growth by allowing recipients to forward the invitation to friends and families. Within a week, more than 20,000 people had signed up for the e-mail program - an astounding response by any measure. “The key to the long-term success of the program was to use the customer information respectfully, with relevance,” says Hanna. The program launched in 2001 and still remains a powerful marketing resource for the restaurant group.

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http://www.restaurantinformer.com/index.php?p=593#respond

“If you want good coffee and a comfy place to work, I’d recommend this place,” wrote Stephanie S., who gave Rooz four stars. “And the No Yelpers sticker made me laugh.”

Rooz’s owner, Steve Ranjbin, said he put the sticker up as a joke, but added that he had a complaint about Yelp.

“Yelp does not respect us as business owners,” Mr. Ranjbin said. “They don’t listen to business owners unless you’re an advertiser paying Yelp.”

Mr. Ranjbin, who said that amateur reviews can hurt his business, said some had misquoted him or called his employees names, but that Yelp had refused to take these comments down. Yelp rarely removes reviews, even when advertisers complain, preferring to let the crowd have its say.

Read the whole story Here