How A Restaurant Operator From New York Turned Collecting Customer Emails Into A Nightmare
There’s nothing wrong with asking help from your employees in collecting customer emails. It’s their job to help you, the restaurant operator, so you could help them, your employees, pay their electric bills and make ends meet. But don’t do it like this guy, Vadim Ponorovsky, who one day decided to email his restaurant staff and threatened to get them fired if they didn’t meet his quota of 20 customer emails in two weeks.
Jesus. Ponorovsky’s expletive-laden email is available here.
If anything, I applaud the guy for understanding the value of restaurant email marketing. But lines need to be drawn, and Ponorovsky here just crossed it big time.
I don’t believe throwing insults at your staff is the right way to establish a positive workplace attitude. It goes against everything I’ve advocated since day one. So in retrospect, here are a few tips on how you could motivate your staff about collecting customer emails… done MY way.
- Reward your staff with a dollar or two for every valid customer email address.
- Raise the stakes higher. For every 45 valid customer email addresses, they get $100.
- Why not turn the whole thing into a competitive game? Whoever collects the most valid emails gets a free lunch, etc.
- On the other hand, encourage your customers. Tempt them by putting together a part of the menu available only if they provide a valid email address. Experiment and learn from customer feedback.
- Assign someone to stand at the checkout counter and explain to customers about your “email only” menu items and services.
- Any customer on the restaurant email address list gets a 3%~5% VIP discount.
Be positive, not expletive. I’m pretty sure with proper encouragement your staff would be happy to help you with whatever restaurant marketing campaigns you’ve got cooking on the back burner. Just don’t send them morning emails like Vadim Ponorovsky.
I’m thrilled to hear your opinions on this latest series of events. Leave a comment below.