What's your secret

That's what a group of guests asked me last night after they had patiently waited at the bar for a table and received a level of service that they described as "generous". What's my secret?, I replied, trying to give myself time to think. The eldest gentleman interrupts my thought process to say "I'll tell you what your secret is and you probably don't even realize it. Your secret is word of mouth!" I am quite pleased to hear him say this and I begin to reply when he stops me before I can. "As a small business owner, you and your wife cannot afford one iota of bad worth of mouth and it has led you and your staff to provide a wonderful, generous experience here without even realizing it." The four of them all agree with this statement and I have a puzzled look on my face. "I suppose I've never thought of it that way", I respond and they go on to elaborate further. It seems that the four of them dine out regularly and actually hunt down restaurants that are owner operated as Mo's steakhouse used to be because this group feels that the word of mouth they have picked is more important to an owner-operator and they have likley worked much harder personally to see their business and livelyhood flourish. What they are trying to say is that larger restaurants, restaurant groups or restaurant chains can afford for their guests to have a bad experience, they have the advertising to keep drawing in new guests and can survive on making a small fraction of those guests happy and converting them into regulars. Whereas my wife and I need virtually every guest that walks through that door to become a regular for our business to really thrive and as a result go so far over and above what's come to be expected in a night out that we can't help to have such phenomenal success (embarrassed). This idea has kept my mind busy all night and all morning, I think that they were right. We spend alot of time with our staff to be sure that each guest has "the experience" of Swig and when they don't we certainly want to know about it in order to get another chance to prove just how great that experience can be. Thank you oh foursome of knowledge I think we just stepped it up another notch.
Hope to serve you too soon!