Bagel, bagel on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?
I love bagels! Nine years ago when I moved to Charlotte, you couldn't find one, and now they seem to be everywhere. New bagel shops on every corner. McBagels. I went into a gas station yesterday free bagels with fill up. They're everywhere.
Soon, the bagel supremacy war will heat up, but now the field of competitors is still settling in. The winner will be determined by how well their customers talk about them behinds their backs, or word of mouth advertising. Here are three cases so you can judge for yourself:
Bagel 1: Teresa and I had just finished a long jog. I panted, "Let's stop at that new Einstein Bagel place on South Boulevard before we go home, I think it just opened." I walked up to the entrance only to find a sign: "Open next Monday." Rats. Before I could turn away, a man jumped up from his seat in the window at the store, ran out to greet me and said, "If you're here for bagels, we don't have any today, but here's a coupon for two free bagels when we open up on Monday."
Wow, I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting, "Sorry, we're closed." I went back on Monday. The place was packed. The staff was friendly. The bagels were good, but there were no egg bagels, my favorite. I said, "Do you have any egg bagels?" "No," the server said. "But we've had lots of requests for them, come back in two days, they'll be here." I did, and they were.
Wow. I wasn't expecting that, I was expecting, "Sorry, we don't have them yet." I bought six bagels, and they gave me a seventh for free. Friendly people, good bagels (the kind I wanted), and they gave me another coupon for a free bagel with cream cheese if I came in before the end of the month. Double wow.
Bagel 2: Saturday, 7:56 a.m. I drove up to Manhattan Bagels on Woodlawn Road on my way to a meeting. A crowd stood outside the door peering in the window. The sign on the door said "8:00 a.m.-noon." I tapped on the glass. Someone looked up at me and lip-synced "8 o'clock" in an act of defiance. The crowd grumbled. Five of the nine people gathered decided to leave and go to Bruegger's Bagels. Now it was 8 a.m. on the dot, and my tapping changed to banging. "The last angry man" barged out the door as he unlocked it, obviously annoyed at having to open the store on time. I couldn't help but sarcastically say, "I apologize for wanting to buy something from your store so your children can eat tonight," which he took as a negative comment.
Bagel man swore at me several times so much so and so loudly that Teresa, who was sitting in the car, locked the car door for fear that the bagel man would open fire. I went inside the store where the cashier gave me five rude excuses in a row about how many wholesale account orders had to be filled that morning, and how the boss was too cheap to hire enough people, and how she offered to quit, and other assorted inane comments.
I got my bagels and exited the store alive vowing never to return. I made a mental note that they could stock an additional profit item bulletproof vests.
Bagel 3: After another jog, I stopped into Bruegger's Bagels on Morehead Street. I got to the front of the line and ordered an egg bagel. "We don't have egg bagels," the counterperson said triumphantly. "How come?" I said. "Egg bagels have too much cholesterol in them," she said. "We serve healthy bagels."
Really, I thought. They put enough cream cheese on their bagels that your arteries could harden by the time you got to the cash register if you took a bite. Why don't they just tell me they don't feel like making egg bagels, or that egg bagels cost too much, or they decided not to make egg bagels. I could live with that. Why don't they just tell me the truth?
So I continued, "Just give me a plain bagel and toast it please." "We don't toast bagels," she said. "Oh," I said. "Doesn't anyone ever ask for toasted bagels?"
"Sure, all the time," she said. "But we don't do it."
Think about that for a second. Here's a store that delivers a hypocritical message about health to its customers, and has made a conscious decision to ignore the desire of its customers often. Good move. Seems like the right kind of attitude that will keep the customers coming back. Not. (NOTE: They got a toaster last week after two years of ignoring customers.)
Bagel Report: I like bagels. I like toasted bagels. I like egg bagels. I like friendly people. Those being my desires, the field of bagel stores has narrowed to a precious few. And while the above three stores remain open for business, my big question is for how long?
When competition stiffens, the only businesses that survive are the ones that offer the best value, friendly and memorable service, and meet their customers' needs. The same goes for your business. Think about that the next time you want your bagel toasted. Think about that the next time you tell your customer "no."
President of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Buy Gitomer, Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached at: salesman@gitomer.com
