My daughter slays a shark

One of the reasons I like the Outer Banks in North Carolina so much, is that I have very LOW expectations of the restaurants, stores and clerks. Other reasons include nearly empty beaches, no high rise condo's, etc. The employment issues we all encounter around the world are on full display here. Some restaurants are not even open a full week. Some closed Mon & Tues, others M, T, Wed, almost all closed on Sunday's. For an area that relies on vacationers in a short period of time (May-Sept), sales are down 15-45%. Painful. For the places we did find open, they did not disappoint my expectations.

At Miller's the food was pretty good, but the service.... oofda! we put there service to the test, and they did not come close to doing there best.

Not wanting to fill out the comment card at the table, I brought it back to our beach house. Not much room for comments due to the Dumbo-eared dude on the card. Sure it is cute, but prevents what a comment card was invented for... namely.... comments. My other roadblock in commenting on the service was....???? No stamp I would have to pay, to send my feedback. This kills 91% of response. (Toasttab.com) If you truly want feedback, and are prepared to act on it, remove all barriers to response. This is also sage advice for all of your service systems, remove barriers. Put a Donald Ducking stamp on the thing. The information you will get is far more valuable than a 35 cent stamp.

A bright spot in our quest for a great restaurant experience came at an unassuming place called Tortuga Lies, recommended to me by my good friend and DSNi member Kendall Eveland. The food was phenomenal! And the service appropriate to the atmosphere. They have taken a page right from the Vance Morris playbook and created an experience out of the mundane. My 13 year old daughter, Emma, loves Shirley Temples. Usually, we just get the drink. Boring. But at Tortuga's the grenadine came in a plastic shark that she got to pour into the glass of sprite. Looking like blood flowing into the glass!

Even at 13 she loved it. Was it a big deal? Not really. Was it something different and memorable? You betcha! Just these two little examples can have an enormous impact on your profitability.

1. Remove barriers to service, sales, communication
2. Create experiences out of the mundane

Remember, you won't profit unless you implement, Vance "sunburned in the one spot I missed with the sunscreen" Morris P.S. My 14 year old, Kazys (named after his Lithuanian grandfather) is standing behind me while I type and wanted to know where his picture was.... So here we are at Tortuga's