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Friends or SCs? (Sorry, long. Serious rant.)
I'm PISSED! I mean, seriously pissed. This is completely unrelated to my job, but my husband and I organize a monthly event for the community here. We meet over breakfast before work in an area most of them are working anyway. We make no money off of this. The only thing they have to pay is the cost of their breakfast. However, they're being really Sucky Customers, both to us, and the venues we've used for this event.
We arranged with a classic breakfast type place to meet there every month. They'll let us make a reservation for up to 40 people. However, they need a number the day before that's at least close to exact. Because of that, we take RSVPs online. We send out a monthly email to let them know registration is open. We send out a reminder the week before for them to update their RSVPs for two reasons:
1. So we can give the restaurant an accurate number.
2. So they're not tying up slots for other members of the community who want to come.
We also send out another reminder 2 days before and tweet about it. However, each month, we make the reservation for the number of people who say they're coming AFTER they've had a chance to update multiple times. Every time, we never make our numbers. As little as half actually show up. However, the no shows vary so we can't really make plans around that, either. The restaurant is very understandably pissed with us because we're tying up valuable table space during their breakfast rush. Also, people who wanted to come thought they couldn't.
I've worked front and back of house in restaurants. I'm MORTIFIED to have to tell them people aren't showing up again. Something had to be done, so we sent out an email to the list basically telling them nicely how rude they're being to the restaurant staff and their fellow community members. I think the latter meant more to them for saving face.
The next month, most everyone showed. Close enough that the restaurant staff was happy with us again. Huge relief. However, then a few left without paying their portion of the tab. We didn't realize this because it was at another table and one poor guy was left with $70 worth of the check.
Others pitched in and shared the burden, but this never should have happened. We weren't told about this incident until the next time, so I ended up going table to table then to be the check police.
This time, we hadn't sent out a shaming email to update RSVPs, but stupidly thought after the last one, maybe the reminders would be enough. Wrong. Once again, we fell embarrassingly short of our numbers. Also, several have been consistently complaining about the price and the food at the venue.
That day, we went home and wrote an email to the list basically outlining what I wrote above. Very few apologized, but those were nice. Encouraging that not everyone is a jerk. A few just unsubscribed from the list. Whatev. Good riddance. A few wrote back saying we should somehow magically make it so that the RSVPs don't matter. They should be grateful for our business blah blah blah.
One pro-active community member who thinks no shows are utterly unacceptable as well helped us find another venue. We visited there today, met with the GM, who our friend knows personally, and we loved the place. He's not concerned if we don't make our numbers. You order and pay at the counter and seat yourself, so you're not hurting a server's income. He even said he'd open half an hour early for us on that day since our event starts before they typically open. He's done the math and if the typical crowd all just orders coffee he'll make up his cost for opening early. The food is great. The average price for breakfast is $4 as opposed to $10. Can't get much better.
So, we settled it. The GM is happy for the business and we're happy for the flexibility. The announcement went out to the list about the change of venue.
Now they're griping about it. When I first started writing this, I thought more were griping about it, but it turns out a few wrote again and apologized saying they loved the place and their iPhone autocorrect borked up the meaning. There are just a couple of loud complainers. If they stop coming, great. They didn't have any suggestions for a better place so screw it.
We've decided that if the griping ones keep this up, we'll just quietly remove them from the mailing list so they don't get any notifications about new events. Confronting them didn't work. We don't want to all out ban them and split the community.
With friends like these, who needs SCs?
We arranged with a classic breakfast type place to meet there every month. They'll let us make a reservation for up to 40 people. However, they need a number the day before that's at least close to exact. Because of that, we take RSVPs online. We send out a monthly email to let them know registration is open. We send out a reminder the week before for them to update their RSVPs for two reasons:
1. So we can give the restaurant an accurate number.
2. So they're not tying up slots for other members of the community who want to come.
We also send out another reminder 2 days before and tweet about it. However, each month, we make the reservation for the number of people who say they're coming AFTER they've had a chance to update multiple times. Every time, we never make our numbers. As little as half actually show up. However, the no shows vary so we can't really make plans around that, either. The restaurant is very understandably pissed with us because we're tying up valuable table space during their breakfast rush. Also, people who wanted to come thought they couldn't.
I've worked front and back of house in restaurants. I'm MORTIFIED to have to tell them people aren't showing up again. Something had to be done, so we sent out an email to the list basically telling them nicely how rude they're being to the restaurant staff and their fellow community members. I think the latter meant more to them for saving face.
The next month, most everyone showed. Close enough that the restaurant staff was happy with us again. Huge relief. However, then a few left without paying their portion of the tab. We didn't realize this because it was at another table and one poor guy was left with $70 worth of the check.
Others pitched in and shared the burden, but this never should have happened. We weren't told about this incident until the next time, so I ended up going table to table then to be the check police.This time, we hadn't sent out a shaming email to update RSVPs, but stupidly thought after the last one, maybe the reminders would be enough. Wrong. Once again, we fell embarrassingly short of our numbers. Also, several have been consistently complaining about the price and the food at the venue.
That day, we went home and wrote an email to the list basically outlining what I wrote above. Very few apologized, but those were nice. Encouraging that not everyone is a jerk. A few just unsubscribed from the list. Whatev. Good riddance. A few wrote back saying we should somehow magically make it so that the RSVPs don't matter. They should be grateful for our business blah blah blah.
One pro-active community member who thinks no shows are utterly unacceptable as well helped us find another venue. We visited there today, met with the GM, who our friend knows personally, and we loved the place. He's not concerned if we don't make our numbers. You order and pay at the counter and seat yourself, so you're not hurting a server's income. He even said he'd open half an hour early for us on that day since our event starts before they typically open. He's done the math and if the typical crowd all just orders coffee he'll make up his cost for opening early. The food is great. The average price for breakfast is $4 as opposed to $10. Can't get much better.
So, we settled it. The GM is happy for the business and we're happy for the flexibility. The announcement went out to the list about the change of venue.
Now they're griping about it. When I first started writing this, I thought more were griping about it, but it turns out a few wrote again and apologized saying they loved the place and their iPhone autocorrect borked up the meaning. There are just a couple of loud complainers. If they stop coming, great. They didn't have any suggestions for a better place so screw it.
We've decided that if the griping ones keep this up, we'll just quietly remove them from the mailing list so they don't get any notifications about new events. Confronting them didn't work. We don't want to all out ban them and split the community.
With friends like these, who needs SCs?
) it turns out there are just one or two really loud complainers left. Hopefully, it will stay that way!
We'd be razzed to death. 
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