Customers - because they're worth it

Licensees often bemoan the fickleness of customers and their general awfulness.

There's a kind of freemasonry black humour involved in slagging off punters who are less than perfect in the way they patronise the pub.

For example, a pub toilet wall in the north country was recently seen to hold a message from the licensee to his customers, remarking on their round-buying habits.

Its advice went something like this... "Don't forget to order Guinness at the end of the round - we like to take as long as possible serving you. Please wait until we've got your round and told you the price before deciding you'd like some crisps. And make us run through all the types of crisp we've got before making your choice: it helps us refresh our memory on what we've got in stock."

Etc, etc.

Maybe some licensees find this kind of sarcastic dig at "awkward" customers amusing - but if they do, the laugh will surely be on them.

Most customers who read those pointed remarks will feel deeply insulted, and wonder why they're parting with their hard-earned cash in such a hostile hostelry.

The best licensees treasure their customers, rather than view them as a necessary evil.

Even when they're slow or difficult. That's what it means to be part of a service industry. As far as possible, you put others' needs and interests before your own.

Yet even the best licensees may be missing a trick when it comes to switched-on service. Why is it that hardly any pub rewards its best customers for their loyalty? Why does someone spending over £50 a week with you get no better treatment than a stranger who pops in once in a blue moon? Shouldn't there be a system that differentiates between them? The reward schemes that exist offer such paltry prizes (a T-shirt for 25 pints) that they add insult to the injury.

Let me say it again: good customers need looking after, and too many in the trade are not looking after them as well as they should.

Patricia Hewitt's call for increased taxes on RTDs is what you might expect from a Health minister. Yet the trade ignores her call at its peril. The drop in RTD sales since Brown raised their tax rates a few years ago will be used as evidence that the tactic works. In fact, this just shifts young drinkers to cheaper products, and especially those they can get dirt-cheap in supermarkets. Until the yawning on-off price differential is addressed, bingeing will live on.