You're a Coward... Me Too

Here is an excerpt of this article in the NYT:

"In January, the chef Jason Neroni of Blanca, north of San Diego, blasted back at anonymous critics who had posted negative comments on Yelp.com. “Yelp is for cowards,” he tweeted, who don’t have the courage “to say anything while in your restaurant.” 

He has a point! Although I love eating in restaurants, there are too many times where for a reason or another, when the experience was either awful, or there was a suggestion I felt would improve things for the owner, I did not act on it. To make it even clearer, one of my neighbors owns a restaurant close to our home and despite observing from going to her restaurant that some adjustment could make a difference in the success of her place, I still feel uneasy when I see her, unable to open up to her. After all, preparing food for people, even in some really bad restaurants, can be a labor of love and who has a heart really wants to crush a dream!

Here is my take on Neroni's comment, he is right, most of us are cowards! But I see an opportunity for restaurants, other type of organizations and even you in your own personal life. How easy right now is it to get real feedback, good or bad from the people you work with and from those you serve? Why not to make it really, really easy for people to give you feedback and complain or rave about what you do? There is an opportunity to offer your customers, restaurant patrons and others, new, easy and compelling ways  to tell you what do they think about you.

Here's one simple proposition that you can make yours: why not creating a board of honor, that could be seen by all of your clients? You could show feedback from customers that made a real difference in the way you deliver your service. You could start raving about clients who respond to what you do, good  or not. Nobody expect you to be perfect,but people love to see you improve.

Imagine if you can start doing this at home!