Never underestimate the power that the customers hold within themselves. It does not matter what the product line or industry is, if the customer is satisfied and happy, the business will exist and thrive!
Let me cite a few examples here to drive the point home.
What do Jean-Georges, Scalini, Hakkasan Mayfair, Trishna, or Davies-Brooks have in common?
These are all Michelin star restaurants in London.
The Ledbury, a two Michelin star restaurant in London which usually sees a wait of several months to get a table, now delivers home at your dining table! Hard to even fathom this! However crazy it may sound, it is the new normal, and now due to the COVID pandemic, all businesses are adapting to change. Le Comptoir Robuchon is a pretty new restaurant in London, but the food it is serving will be recognizable to many gourmands. As the name suggests, the restaurant serves world-class French cuisine that honors the legendary Joël Robuchon.
Before the current COVID situation, Michelin star Portuguese chef Jose Avillez would never have dreamed of serving his food via uber eats. But now his restaurant, Bairro do Avillez, is just the latest of several high-end establishments to deliver meals through an app. Yes, a Michelin Star chef food via an APP!
Closer to home in India
With Coronavirus changing the way people dined at restaurants, Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), the hospitality company of the Tata Group, has announced a new service called Qmin starting with home delivery of dishes from its famous restaurants. In the first phase customers can order from eight iconic and celebrated restaurants in Mumbai like Golden Dragon and Souk from Taj Mahal Palace; Thai Pavilion and Trattoria from President; and Ming Yang from Taj Lands’ End, to name a few.
What lessons can we learn
- Adapt or perish – Be open to change
- Be a solution provider for your customer
- Adopt a fair and transparent approach – don’t try to sell what you have, see what the customers need and if what is offered fits their needs
- Humility is the key, it is just not a business relationship with the customer, but the bond should be deeper on a human level
- Self-evaluation and upskilling to keep relevant with changing times
- Adoption of technology and letting go of rigid notions of business.
