Bad business, Public Relations, and Poutine

And now for something completely different... A public airing of a poutine-reated grievance.

Excuse me for steering away from the normal topic of this blog, but I'm cranky right now. I'm cranky because one of my favourite companies, Smoke's Poutinerie, slightly slighted me.

If you've never heard of Smoke's, I feel bad for you. They're a little joint that solely serves poutine, and they do a hell of a job at it. They offer a ridiculous variety of poutine with great toppings, check out their menu at the link I've provided above if you want to learn more.

I've spent a lot of time, and money, at Smoke's. The only one open as of today in Winnipeg is in the Exchange District, right across from my favourite watering hole, the King's Head pub. It's only minor hyperbole to say that Smoke's changed my life by opening poutine-related doors I never knew were possible.

So, my heart skipped a beat when I saw this tweet...

My thought process:

1) "Oh sweet, Smoke's is doing a promo for free poutine"

2) "Hmm, I have to drop my roommate off at the MTS Centre right away, maybe I'll swing by and grab one."

3) "Wait, this is at 885 Regent? That's a new location"

4) "THAT'S A NEW LOCATION BY MY HOUSE"

5) "HURRY UP ROOMMATE I NEED TO GET YOU THERE AND THEN BACK TO 885 REGENT IN AN HOUR"

I was so happy. So, so happy. I dropped roomie off, passed by many possible food places that I could have went to (I had originally planned on hitting up Shwarma Kahn) drove about 15 minutes out of my way to find the new Poutinerie.

I walked up to the door at 3:10, with 20 minutes to spare. Assuming they'd only be offering a small regular poutine, I was hoping I'd be able to pay a surcharge to add some delicious toppings. 

I grabbed the handle on the door. It was locked. I can only assume the look on my face was similar to that of a child who's just found out that (SPOILER ALERT) Santa Claus isn't real.

A nice looking older gentleman with a grey moustache came to the door, gave me a menu and said "We officially open on Monday". Before he could close the door, I mentioned the tweet I'd seen earlier.  He responded by saying "That was hours ago" and closed the door.

I was heartbroken. 

I went back to my car, light-headed, dizzy. It reminded me of the time I was refused a slow dance at a grade six sock-hop.

I figured I must have misread the time on the tweet, that I saw a mirage, that it was too perfect to be true. That I was wrong.

I pulled out my phone. No. I was not wrong, cleverly-disguised-as-a-nice-older-gentleman-who-is-obviosuly-a-poutine-demon.  The tweet was sent only 44 minutes ago.

I walked back to the door, vindicated. I knocked twice. The Poutine Demon looked, saw me, and was clearly annoyed. He opened the door.

"What?"

"The tweet was sent 44 minutes ago."

"That was on Toronto time"

....

........

............

Okay, I get that you're old, and Poutine Demons probably don't have a lot of use with Twitter, but THAT'S NOT HOW TWITTER WORKS.

I told him that was bad business. He responded by blaming it on head office.  He clearly looked down on me, and closed the door in my face.

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So yeah, that sucked. And it got me pretty riled up. I study communications, and I'm mostly interested in Public Relations, so this got me thinking about the PR aspect of being snubbed like that. Is it good business to piss off a customer, when you're clearly in the wrong? No. Is it bad PR? Well, not really. I'm only one member of one of their publics, so they can probably afford to piss me off.  That's why I'm writing this blog post, and why I trashed them publicly on Twitter (it's been about an hour and fifteen minutes since I tweeted them, and there's been no response).

Is it petty for me to do this? Yeah. Is the effort I've put into doing this post worth it? Probably not, but it's a Saturday afternoon and I've got time to kill before the Jets play the Leafs, so what the hell.

As well as thinking of it from a PR perspective, I thought about it from a restaurant employee perspective. I've worked as a server and bartender at a franchised restaurant for six year now, (I'm legally prohibited from naming them in my social networks due to a social media policy all employees are forced to sign, but they're the number one sports bar in Canada that specializes in Italian food and a casual, family-oriented dining atmosphere) and we see ridiculous complaints every single day. Most of the time it's because we genuinely screwed up. When that happens, we fix it. Sometimes though, the customer isn't right. Sometimes the customer is delusional. Sometimes the customer just wants free shit. We don't always bow down to their demands in these situations, but no matter how hard it is, we make sure the customer knows his or her concerns are being heard, and we do the best we can to rectify the situation.

We never close doors in people's faces. We never talk down to them. We always try and make it right.

Smoke's didn't do that today. The (I'm assuming) manager displayed poor communication skills, poor business skills, and he lost a customer for life, two days before his store opens up.

So while it might not be bad Public Relations, it's definitely bad business.

Epilogue.

I ended up getting Panago on the way home. I'd never been there before, but the two young women working were super awesome. They talked a little of hockey with me, made suggestions on the menu, and cooked me a bad-ass steak and mushroom pizza. Top shelf, Panago. Who needs cheese curds anyway.

- DP