If you told me there was a cafe called ‘Goat Cafe’ I would ask you to repeat yourself thinking that firstly, I’d heard your wrong and secondly that I couldn’t and wouldn’t believe there is a cafe for goats let alone that it would be a place I’d willingly visit.
‘Goat Cafe’ isn’t a cafe for goats, unfortunately. It’s a name picked out for being a vegan cafe that doesn’t sell any animal products, putting a small bit of humour into the title.
‘Goat Cafe’ became virally famous in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire for going on a social media rampage against one of its customers, prompting screenshots galore and a backlash of other customers in disbelief that the owner had done what every business owner should never do – a rampage of insults, publicly, towards a customer. You can read more about it by Googling ‘Metro Goat Cafe’ a fascinating read for any customer service orientated business person.
The question is – is there any way back for the ‘Goat Cafe’ after becoming famous for horrific customer service?
The simple answer is… no. Not under the name ‘Goat Cafe’ anyway.
There are 100’s of strategies for situations like this to take a step back, correct your wrongs and put yourself on the good path back to customers trust. Had the ‘Goat Cafe’ owner taken some form of course, or lesson in social media like https://www.passport2success.org/destination/social-media then maybe, just maybe the problem wouldn’t have arisen in the first place. In this particular case, it would have to be a relocate the business or cease trading as there would be no way back unless they took this negative publicity and jumped on it proposing themselves to be ‘a cafe with no customer experience’ similar to ‘Dick’s Last Resort’ a chain in America that is purposely rude to customers’. Although, I doubt very much that a Vegan cafe that thrives on being vegan could turn into such a place.
A lot of business and cafe owners do not have experience with social media. Despite the medium coming to nearly 20 years of age – there are 1000s of businesses that simply have not been taught the power of social media or even have their own accounts for business on them. Yet, online, there are 1000s of sites that help businesses with these particular problems. One suggests that if you are a new business startup, get looking for these free online resources that can help you in the search for business.