I was excited when my friend and Scion of the Keni Family [of Mandovi & Goenchin fame] Anish Keni along with his brother Akshay, decided to branch out on their own with an Oriental Restaurant – Pan Asian Bowl [PAB]. I was just getting to know Anish closely at the time. He was humble. Really hard working. During our discussions, a couple of his ideas got me a little apprehensive about his venture but in all he was making the right moves as a young entrepreneur starting up.
The Success of Pan Asian Bowl, therefore, did not surprise me.
There are a few things all of us – young entrepreneurs like me or established business men, can learn from Anish and Pan Asian Bowl.
1. Passion: It’s hard to find a man more passionate about his work than Anish. He absolutely loves his work. Anish was extremely passionate not only about starting the venture but also about running the day to day operations. A lot of Entrepreneurs are excited about starting off, but lose their steam once it’s off the ground. That reflects in their ventures. When a leader is passionate about work, the passion rubs off onto the employees and customers.
2. God Lies in Execution: On most days, you will find Anish on the restaurant floor at PAB. Taking orders. Training his team on the job. Ensuring that things are going right. As a business man, especially one starting up, you need to be there – on ground, where the action is. That’s where your insights about the business will come from. That’s where you will make connections with customers. That’s where you will see how your product, your dream is actually faring. A lot of Business People think their job is to sit behind the Cash counter or inside a cabin instead of being at the forefront. Irrespective of how many Managers you have, do not lose touch with your customers and employees. In the end, your business happens one customer at a time. One transaction at a time. [We’ll talk about scaling up some other day].
3. The Back-end boring Operations are as important as the front-end Glamour: A lot of Business people love the front-end of business. Where we sit in an AC office. Where we see the money coming in. But fail to realize that a good front-end often depends on a tedious, unglamorous, boring operational back-end. Anish travels to the Fish market along with his team at 4 am every morning to get fresh fish. Being in a fish market is no fun. But he cares about the quality of fish, because we, his customers, care about the quality of fish.
4. Fanatic about Customer Service: Anish is customer service personified. He LOVES his customers. He goes out of his way for you, will recommend the right food, instruct the chef if required on your special requirement, remembers what you ordered the last time – the list is endless. You don’t feel like a guest. You leave the place feeling that you own a part of PAB.
Customer Service is a lost art. Do you make your customers feel awesome? Or have you taken them for granted?
5. Overtly Fanatical about Service Recovery: What triggered this column was my last outing at PAB. My beautiful wife and I decided to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary at PAB. For some reason, there was a minor screw up with the order. Our experience at PAB wasn’t top notch as it usually is. This got to Anish. The next day both me and my wife received this message from Anish:
“I apologize for last night, I believe we did not live up to expectations at PAB.
Kindly text me your order & your thoughts, I wanna work on it right away,
Our Guest Satisfaction Rate is 100% & I cannot let anyone leave dissatisfied.
Will be waiting for your text.
Apologies to your wife.
I promise I’ll take this right to the drawing board till we bring you’ll back smiling.
Will be waiting”
The next day, as a surprise, we got a couple of parcels delivered to our place. One with the awesome PAB food we relish, prepared by Anish himself. The Second – a Cake with “Happy Anniversary” scribed on it. Not just had he recovered from the mistake, he had managed to delight us again!
Every Organization screws up. The key is the recovery. If you manage to delight your customers at recovery – they will forgive your mistakes and become even more loyal customers. A great recovery creates Word of Mouth which is of utmost importance for every organization.
6. Don’t need to give discounts. Concentrate on quality: From Day 1 of operations, I don’t remember Anish doling out discounts to rope in customers. Even to friends, it’s always retail prices. But he delights us with the food and the service. A lot of Business People think that giving discounts will get customers back. If you concentrate on the quality of experience, they will come back anyway.
7. Spending time with his people: Anish spends as much time as possible with his team. It’s not just about taking your people out on an annual picnic [which he does too], but creating a bond with your people on a day to day basis. Know your people. Understand their strengths and weaknesses. Get to know them personally. Their problems. Their aspirations. If you serve your employees well, they will serve the customers better.
8. Continuous Innovation: The PAB food offering in its first year had gone down well with its customers. The prestigious Times Food Award being proof of that. But the PAB team reinvented their Menu. Added a few offerings. Knocked a few off their list. They didn’t just sit on their laurels. They innovated.
To succeed in any business in the long run, it’s important to reinvent yourself periodically. Facebook changes its established layout from time to time [although it causes temporary discomfort] if the customer experience is enhanced. In your business, are you looking at continuously innovating your offering? If you don’t keep innovating to suit your customers changing needs, be rest assured somebody else will.
There is no guaranteed formula to succeed in business. I have seen Business failure closely through my own ventures. Sometimes you try to do all the above in some way and still fail. That’s the nature of Business and Money. But not doing the above as a Business person operating in today’s competitive environment is a sure way to fail. The success of PAB has lessons for all of us. Let’s try to apply some of them to our own businesses. If a young Entrepreneur starting his first venture can do it, so can we.