I don't think there's ever been a pub story which has got more traction on the media, not a "positive" pub story anyway. Unless it's the "pub poisons 93 people who ate dodgy chicken" type of article, or "pub landlord shoots bloke who added Guinness onto the end of his round" kind of thing, you don't tend to see much news about individual hostelries, even less their charitable work. That's a shame in many respects as much good goes on in pubs throughout Britain on a daily basis, but I guess the newshounds figure "pub raises £250 for local hospice" ain't gonna sell many papers, and lets be honest they're probably right.
So we were probably even more surprised than you were when the Evening Standard, Talk Radio, BBC Radio London, SKY News, ITN London etc came knocking at our door looking for an angle on the "free roasts if you're on your own on Crimbo day" story. Yes the Wimbledon Guardian had gotten hold of it (and we were even quite chuffed at that) but when you've got people emailing you from Australia and the USA telling you how happy the story made them, you get to know what they mean when they say it's gone "viral". Even more surprising we thought given we've done a similar thing for the last five years, but I guess in those years it didn't get retweeted by George Galloway to 259K followers, setting up a chain of events which saw it spin around the world.
Obviously when literally millions of people read it you are bound to get the odd one who either doesn't get it at all, or alternatively writes the whole thing off as a cynical marketing ploy. To that end we had a couple of people telling us "homeless people don't have Twitter accounts" despite the fact the gesture wasn't specifically aimed at homeless people anyway. Equally, it was frustrating to read one guy from hundreds of miles away speculate that the Alex was probably "a dingy little pub that nobody ever goes in" (how wrong can you be in one sentence?) then go onto explain it was nothing more than a crude PR exercise. Thankfully most people though "got" it, and we didn't respond to any negativity online as we never do.
So what was it like on the day? naturally we were a bit worried, and having no idea whatsoever how many people were going to show up we catered for 200 and crossed our fingers it would be enough. We were slightly concerned just before opening when a trickle of single men who were unknown to us began to queue outside the door, but after an early flow it slowed down to a dribble then eventually to a stop. We served 29 people in the end with a free roast, none of whom looked homeless to me (that non PC comment will no doubt go down well) and their ages ranged from one young fella of around 22 to a couple of what looked like retired colonels who could've been in their 80's. The split was around 60:40 men to women I should think, and the average age 50 or so. I greeted all of them on arrival and got them a beer, took their names then told them we'd have a table in "about ten minutes or so". Then when the next person came in, I'd take their name then casually throw in "oh I'll tell you what, let me introduce you to so and so" and kind of got people together that way. I was able to sit people in groups of three and four, and there were a few fledgling friendships (and one budding romance!) formed.
We had four non paid helpers who very kindly offered their services via Twitter, and they were absolutely lovely. Our staff were brilliant too (because they are) and we were also helped on the day by the very big hearted Tom Elliot-Frey from Youngs.
The people who came seemed to love it, they all seemed to have a good old laugh and were unbelievably thankful when they left. All said they'd been wavering as to whether to come or not (which leads us to think there are probably heaps more people in the same boat) but were extremely glad they did. I reckon we'll do it again next year, although it won't get the media coverage as by then it'll be "old hat". If you're a publican yourself and considering giving it a go, I reckon you'll have no worries. If you need any advice (I know you probably won't but hashtag just saying) contact me at the Alex.
Now we've well and truly had our Andy Warhol moment, we can get back to just running our pub again, Happy New Year everyone!
Monday 26 December 2016
Friday 16 December 2016
Negative social media, what to do?
We've probably all had it who work in the hospitality trade, particularly if you serve large numbers of customers every day. "Don't go to this place it's rubbish" on TripAdvisor (hopefully surrounded by "do go to this place it's really good" reviews). Or the old chestnut "we've been asked to leave for absolutely no reason whatsoever" on Twitter (because all venues do this don't we? We all ask people to leave for "absolutely no reason whatsoever").
Such things on Twitter and Facebook provide a bit of a dilemma for publicans and restaurateurs everywhere, do you get involved and try and explain your position, or do you let it blow over and let people get their gripes off their chest? My feeling is there's no right or wrong answer, but almost always conducting dialogue of this type with customers on a public forum doesn't end well. Either it drags on and on and other people (who weren't there/don't know the situation) get involved, or the operator eventually loses his rag and launches into the customer publicly telling him "never come back you tosser!". We've all seen such cases played out in the media and in my view it doesn't reflect well upon either party, amusing though it is for the newspapers (particularly if it's a well known chef as it always seems to be) .
As far as being a customer myself who occasionally refers to such sites as TripAdvisor is concerned, I think it's usually important to have a "nutter" filter when viewing potential places to visit. I've always felt that if the vast majority of people really like a venue, the odd one giving a 1 out of 5 review and saying "the place was packed and noisy" or "we had to wait 35 minutes for our pizzas" ought to be taken with a bucket of salt. Equally, I can't get away from the feeling that if said customer was so massively concerned with the noise, or the wait time, or the price or whatever it was, why didn't they take it up with the management at the time, or at least call them the next day to discuss it? That's what I'd do see, if (and it's never ever happened) I was asked to leave somewhere "for no reason whatsoever" I'd leave, then vigorously take it up with the management of the venue the following day. I wouldn't create a scene at the time as that would kind of prove the removers were correct all along, and I wouldn't lower myself to sounding off on social media, I think I'm better than that.
Not that all of this of course means that any complainers or people who mark you one out of five and the like are wrong, of course they aren't. People who complain or aren't impressed ought to be the oxygen which allows a good venue to improve, pointing out deficiencies or indiscretions which the vast majority of customers will also see but usually be too polite to tell you about. "Professional complainers" don't exist, they are a myth of the hospitality trade in my opinion. Also my opinion is that you should multiply the number of complaints you receive in a year by AT LEAST a factor of ten in order to assess how many dissatisfied customers you've had. Most people don't complain, and I've lost count of the times I've been somewhere and despite not being impressed with the whole experience have with a smile told the server everything was "really good". We don't complain as a whole, so when people do we in the trade ought to take them seriously.
But anyway back to Twitter complainers and TripAdvisor marker-downers. I'm pretty sure that as these people have a smart phone and are "savvy" on things in general, they have the ability to find out a venues phone number and/or email address. They have the ability, the intelligence and the nous to make their point to a venue and its management without seeking to publicly embroil them in an argument as well. Ultimately that's the way I feel that such things ought to be played out, and that's why I tend not to get involved if a customer is disparaging on a public forum. I obviously for reasons of professional courtesy wouldn't say to a customer "because you were drunk sir and being a pain in the arse" on a public forum, but I maybe more inclined to do so if he or she popped in and had a word with me. Equally I maybe (or almost certainly would be) more sympathetic to his or her cause if they took the route of actually speaking to us, rather than what they consider to be "the wider world" (even that's a myth, nobody listens to any of us really!).
So anyway there you have it, at the Alex we generally don't get involved in social media spats. We don't think it is helpful. If however you wish to contact us for whatever reason, our email address for reference is alexandra@youngs.co.uk and our phone number is 0208 9477691. My name is Mick, and if you fancy just bobbing in I'll buy you a pint and we can discuss anything you like.
Such things on Twitter and Facebook provide a bit of a dilemma for publicans and restaurateurs everywhere, do you get involved and try and explain your position, or do you let it blow over and let people get their gripes off their chest? My feeling is there's no right or wrong answer, but almost always conducting dialogue of this type with customers on a public forum doesn't end well. Either it drags on and on and other people (who weren't there/don't know the situation) get involved, or the operator eventually loses his rag and launches into the customer publicly telling him "never come back you tosser!". We've all seen such cases played out in the media and in my view it doesn't reflect well upon either party, amusing though it is for the newspapers (particularly if it's a well known chef as it always seems to be) .
As far as being a customer myself who occasionally refers to such sites as TripAdvisor is concerned, I think it's usually important to have a "nutter" filter when viewing potential places to visit. I've always felt that if the vast majority of people really like a venue, the odd one giving a 1 out of 5 review and saying "the place was packed and noisy" or "we had to wait 35 minutes for our pizzas" ought to be taken with a bucket of salt. Equally, I can't get away from the feeling that if said customer was so massively concerned with the noise, or the wait time, or the price or whatever it was, why didn't they take it up with the management at the time, or at least call them the next day to discuss it? That's what I'd do see, if (and it's never ever happened) I was asked to leave somewhere "for no reason whatsoever" I'd leave, then vigorously take it up with the management of the venue the following day. I wouldn't create a scene at the time as that would kind of prove the removers were correct all along, and I wouldn't lower myself to sounding off on social media, I think I'm better than that.
Not that all of this of course means that any complainers or people who mark you one out of five and the like are wrong, of course they aren't. People who complain or aren't impressed ought to be the oxygen which allows a good venue to improve, pointing out deficiencies or indiscretions which the vast majority of customers will also see but usually be too polite to tell you about. "Professional complainers" don't exist, they are a myth of the hospitality trade in my opinion. Also my opinion is that you should multiply the number of complaints you receive in a year by AT LEAST a factor of ten in order to assess how many dissatisfied customers you've had. Most people don't complain, and I've lost count of the times I've been somewhere and despite not being impressed with the whole experience have with a smile told the server everything was "really good". We don't complain as a whole, so when people do we in the trade ought to take them seriously.
But anyway back to Twitter complainers and TripAdvisor marker-downers. I'm pretty sure that as these people have a smart phone and are "savvy" on things in general, they have the ability to find out a venues phone number and/or email address. They have the ability, the intelligence and the nous to make their point to a venue and its management without seeking to publicly embroil them in an argument as well. Ultimately that's the way I feel that such things ought to be played out, and that's why I tend not to get involved if a customer is disparaging on a public forum. I obviously for reasons of professional courtesy wouldn't say to a customer "because you were drunk sir and being a pain in the arse" on a public forum, but I maybe more inclined to do so if he or she popped in and had a word with me. Equally I maybe (or almost certainly would be) more sympathetic to his or her cause if they took the route of actually speaking to us, rather than what they consider to be "the wider world" (even that's a myth, nobody listens to any of us really!).
So anyway there you have it, at the Alex we generally don't get involved in social media spats. We don't think it is helpful. If however you wish to contact us for whatever reason, our email address for reference is alexandra@youngs.co.uk and our phone number is 0208 9477691. My name is Mick, and if you fancy just bobbing in I'll buy you a pint and we can discuss anything you like.
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