How To React To A Food Truck Customer Revolt

You might not think of customers as a threat to your food truck business. You would be wrong. Thanks to social media, consumers can now incite a customer revolt that can throw a wrench into any mobile food business. This even goes for the vendors with the best food truck menus on the road.

3 Step Process For Reacting To A Customer Revolt:

One of the sad realities of running a food truck is that a small percentage of customers will resort to threats to attempt to get what they want. What can you do to make sure your customers remain loyal to you? You need to earn your customer’s trust and also keep it.

Listen and reply

A food truck owner get into trouble by ignoring early warning signs. Be sure that you and your food truck staff are monitoring social media traffic, and are committed to act on what you see and hear on those channels.

Engage and neutralize

People involved in a customer revolt are far more likely to trust a fellow customer than you. To neutralize any type of problem before it spreads, encourage your food truck fans to speak on your behalf.

Involve and change

Prevent a customer revolt from happening by involving customers in helping you make key strategic decisions. This could be as simple as staying tuned into in social media with your customer base or as difficult as asking for suggestions for menu items or some help innovating your customer relations and operational processes.

The Bottom Line

The lesson for food truck vendors is a basic one. Mess with your customers at your peril. Even as captive consumers, they are learning different ways to strike back. A customer revolt will attack you virally, demonize your brand and withhold their dollars where they can. Because of this, you’re left with two alternatives. Look for a new area to work in or acknowledge the problem and fix it.

Have you had a customer revolt over pricing or service or something you may have said on social media? How did you react and how did that work out? Share your story in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter

About the Author: Richard Myrick

Richard Myrick is an architect by degree (Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan) who began his career in real estate development and architectural planning. In September of 2010 he created Mobile Cuisine Magazine to fill an information void he found when he began researching how to start a mobile hotdog cart in Chicago. Richard found that there was no central repository of mobile street food information anywhere on the internet, and with that, the idea for MCM was born. Richard also wrote the "Running a Food Truck for Dummies" available in bookstores everywhere and Amazon. You can reach out to Richard by email at: [email protected].