Have a drink on me!

I was at lunch today and got to talking to the owner of this restaurant seen below:

He mentioned that looking after regulars was important to generate return custom. One of his tricks was to provide a free glass or bottle of wine at the end of a meal. He empowered his staff to do the same. He said as reward and ‘thank you’ tell said customers this:

‘That last bottle / glass of wine is on the house!’

Problem was that some of his staff got the language ever so slightly wrong. Instead they would often say:

‘The next bottle / glass of wine is on the house!’

As you can imagine this changes their view on what to order (Hint: it comes from the top shelf). Instead of where they would normally focus their purchase. The strange thing is that the benefit to the consumer is essentially the same:

A free drink you didn’t expect to pay for.

The problem with getting it wrong is a cost to the business that could be many times higher.

Startup blog lesson: Our words to our audience matter. Small changes can have a huge impact.

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