Be Careful Who You Recommend, Integrity Is Everything
Stories from Renee’s Europe Trip Travel Log: Florence.
Be Careful Who You Recommend. Integrity is everything to your customer and if you lead them down a fiery path, they’ll remember and resent you for it. 
While we were in Florence, Italy the tour bus that took us to the sites gave everyone on board a coupon for a nearby restaurant. After the tour, we decided to take advantage of the coupon and sit down for lunch. Much to our surprise, the restaurant charged us more than double the price of our food just to sit down! I know it’s normal in Europe for some restaurants to charge customers for sitting down. But, the fact is that the restaurateur asked (after we picked out some delicious items from the glass case) “would you like to eat here or take it to go?” in very clear english, with no mention of a difference in prices. The lunch cost 37 Euros (about $50) for two pieces of pizza, one salad an free sodas; should have been about 15 Euros. More than double!
As you could imagine, I was very upset about how much they charged was. Nothing is worse than the feeling of getting ripped off or deceived. Instinctively, I was frustrated at the tour bus company and went back to ask their customer service representative why would they recommend someone who would blatantly take advantage of their customers? The end result is I now look badly on the tour company, and question whether to recommend or review them favorably.
The Tourism industry is slightly different than the service industry because it’s doubtful I will be in Florence again as a re-occurring customer at either of those businesses. But in a scenario where you are recommending a business to a local customer, the effects of a bad recommendation could be much more costly.
So next time you’re making a recommendation be careful who you associate with because if it’s a poor choice, your customers will remember and your reputation will be tarnished.
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