This could be slowly ruining your business

How is the culture in your business? Is it working for you or against you?

“Because if you don’t know – you don’t know!’

As we hit a difficult financial period where everyone is watching their pennies and pounds it is more important than ever to look after your current customers.  A lot of focus at this time of year goes into ‘new customers only’ rightly so as September is always a big intake, however, neglecting you ‘old customers’ would mitigate any growth.

Retention is key to growth anytime of the year, but especially now as people choose between after school activities because of rising costs.

I was in a hotel over Easter and all I can say is Fawlty Towers! In fact, my husband and I nicknamed it that, then had to You Tube some clips of the programme to explain to the kids what we were laughing about. If we hadn’t had laughed, I would have lost my cool and trust me it take a lot for me to lose my cool. At breakfast waiting time was 1 hour – for toast!  All served with loud overtones of the chef screaming at the kitchen staff.  It got to the point where us guests in the dining room started sharing what we had.  I have spare toast, does anyone have any butter?  An absolute farse!

When we arrived, we were given a room that hadn’t been cleaned properly (this is still in covid time) so they moved us to a room where we couldn’t turn the heating off, the bathroom light didn’t work, and the boys had unmade beds!

This wasn’t a cheap hotel either, and I said to my husband – never again!

So did I feedback? Knowing feedback is important…. No! Why? I wasn’t asked, not at one point – even when we asked to move rooms to a clean one! Not once did a member of staff or the owner who was there asked – how is your new room? Are you having a better stay now? How was your breakfast? How was the service?

They didn’t have a culture of feedback. I said to my husband I should say something, his response…. Why bother, they obviously don’t care!

Why bother, they obviously don’t care!

That sentence alone could be the difference between success and failure.  For this hotel, they will end up with zero repeat customers, which will in turn lead them to add their hotel to discount sites to get it filled. This in then leads to a drop in turn over, they will make cost savings and staff will go, leading to even worse service! And so the cycle continues, until, unfortunately the hotel will close.

All because they didn’t ask!

Flip that to a hotel that asked and I honestly gave them feedback. They could have put better training or checklists in place for cleaning staff. They could fix the heating and the light. They could sort out the chef! As I was sat there waiting for my toast, I had heard them say they were understaffed. I said to my husband, they are not using the conservatory part of the dining room, if that had been me, knowing I was heading into a breakfast short staffed. I would have set up tables in the spare area, with cereal, a toaster the essentials so we could have helped ourselves. That way all the kitchen had to deal with was the cooked meals and taken some of the pressure off them.  It made sense to me!  But with me it stayed all because they didn’t ask!

As studio owners who are close to our business, it’s our vocation, I even called mine my baby, until my actual babies came along.  We are invested and passionate. Which means when asking for feedback this can be very scary because we don’t necessarily want to hear the bad. The anticipation of what if it is me! Well, here we go, warts and all. It could be you!  You could be the cause of your business not running as you want and that’s OK! Here me please! Nobody is perfect, we all get things wrong and that is OK. The key is to learn and grow from it, to make it better to improve yourself or the business.

When we ask for feedback we have to be prepared for the bad, but 99% of the time it is good – very good! And what constructive feedback that comes back we can use and make our business better, so they never have to wait an hour for toast!

Open a culture of feedback, include it in your welcome back, ask your customers.  You may well be surprised as to the response; and let’s face it, you will never be as bad as our Fawlty Towers experience!

In Steer with The Den, which is a mastermind for established studio owners, feedback is a regular occurrence. If you a studio owner ready to lead your team, then get in touch and find out more about this incredible mastermind.

About the Author

Sarah Gittins is an author, business coach and mentor. She launched The Dance Den to help other performance arts businesses find balance whilst growing a successful school. She ran her own 330+, multi venue school for 24 years, selling in 2023.  A straight talking coaching from someone who really has the t-shirt in many colours.  Creator of the Start, Scale, Steer Studio System , The Performance Business Tracker, show planner and numerous courses.

Check out www.thedanceden.co.uk