Back in January, for a variety of reasons, I took it upon myself to organise my local pub's Curry Club. Not terribly taxing, get a list of email addresses select a curry house and get people together once a month.
There was lots of enthusiasm and people were coming up asking to be put on the list (I think there is an inclusion thing - people were terrified of being left off the list even if they didn't like curry). The list now consists of almost 50 names.
The routine was quite simple - early in the month I would send a notifier of the date and chosen curry house. Based on responses I would book a table for about 20% more people than had responded and send an email confirming I had done this then, 3 days before the event send a reminder.
Outcome - attendance never bore any resemblance to commitment (neither direct nor statistical). People would turn up without having responded, people who had responded would fail to turn up (sometimes with apologies sometimes without). Interestingly people who had made special requests to be added to the list would neither respond nor turn up. Overall, it didn't really matter, since a curry for 3 is as engaging and fun as a curry for a group of 12 - the major embarrasment for me was when 3 people turned up to a restaurant which had prepared a table for 12.
The point here is that this was organising something that people clearly wanted, at no additional cost to them, amongst friends, yet it was still virtually impossible to get them together as agreed at the right time and in the right place (accepting that I could have phoned and confirmed which was somewhat beyond the spirit of things).
Anyway, the point here is that the course I run clearly catches people's imagination and there is much potential interest - even getting them to pay an advance deposit doesn't appear to be a problem - confirming dates for a 6-week span, however, does. I want to be flexible, but it is important to fix some firm dates very soon - do I accommodate the majority or those who appear most committed?
1st week of August my dates will become definite, though I cannot really win, I hate to lose customers!
I loved your example of the curry house - both regarding the eagerness to join the mailing list and regarding the actual booking / showing up to restaurant behaviour. Precious.
ReplyDeleteAs for the dates, there is a fine line between being flexible and being indecisive. YOU need to decide what the best dates are (e.g., in terms of gap between sessions). Take 'customer insight' in mind, of course, but don't be 'paralysed' by it. To draw a parallel with your curry club example, I learned that giving your guests / customers too much say in the date (a party, in my case) means that you will never find a date that fits everybody and, in the process, you manage to upset those whose date requirements you do not meet (message = I am not as important as the other guests).
Anyway, good luck with your business. I very much like your blog posts.