Shareen Campbell and Phil Saunter, owners of Los Gatos and Bistro Les Chats in Wood Street, and the Swindon Business People of the Year, talk about life in the restaurant business Good customer service is at the heart of our business. We try hard to get it right but we know we don’t always.

People are individuals, both customers and staff have their own personalities and sometimes there are going to be incompatibilities. But when face to face with the customer, things can usually be ironed out.

What about when you’re not face to face with the customer and when the customer is another business? On the end of the phone, it’s obviously more difficult so one would imagine that, where this is the only practical way of doing business, training and procedures would be in place to make sure all goes smoothly. Sadly, not so.

With the transfer of Los Gatos from Wood Street to Devizes Road, we’ve been dealing with a lot of service providers: gas, electricity, water, telephone, internet, etc, as well as purchasing quite a lot of new equipment. Our experience as customers has ranged from merely time consuming and difficult to excruciatingly painful and frustrating.

If someone wants to sell you something or sign you up to a new contract they won’t leave you alone. Gas and electricity brokers phone two or three times a day to see if you’ve made a decision yet.

If, on the other hand, you just want your telephone line or internet relocated, or to get someone to fix the faulty cooker they’ve sold you, speaking to Alexander Graham Bell himself would be easier than getting hold of anyone who’s able to help. Promises of returned calls are almost never fulfilled and getting a name, let alone a direct phone number, is nigh on impossible, though not quite as difficult as getting them to connect you to their supervisor.

So come on – especially if you are a telecommunications provider – sort your systems out and remember who’s the customer. It’s easy to work out – it’s the one who’s paying the bill. Don’t rely on computers to do the job. employ and train a few more people.

We promise we won’t be employing robot waiting staff anytime soon.