How To Find Your Best Customers - The Twenty Percent: Boca Fiesta

80-20 rule is a rule of thumb that states that 80% of outcomes can be attributed to 20% of the causes for a given event. In business, the 80-20 rule is used to help managers identify problems and determine which operating factors are most important and should receive the most attention based on an efficient use of resources. In this occasion, I went to the heart of Downtown Gainesville and interviewed the owner of one of the most popular Bar/restaurants in town, Boca Fiesta. My interviewee was Jacob Ihde, owner of the restaurant. He didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of video-recording him during the interview, so I based my interview on the following format and I wrote down the answers that he provided me during the interview.

Find a business owner and talk to them about their customers:

Interview to Jacob Idhe, owner of the restaurant Boca Fiesta

1.      Who do you think your target customers are?

Jacob Idhe: I believe that our target customers are based on families from the east-side of Gainesville. This is a bar/restaurant that is not only focused on college students, but actually, I believe that our target market is focused on families in general from the east side of Gainesville.

2.      What do you think are your customers' unmet needs?

I believe that my customers are looking for a place to have fun and hang out with friends. We are more like a local place in which we try to make the customer have fun and feel comfortable during his or her visit to our restaurant.

3.      Where do you find your customers?

We don’t do any advertising. We focus on other people from restaurants close to ours. More precisely, we focus our market on customers who are often around the downtown area of Gainesville. The reason why we don’t do advertising is because we didn’t have positive results on previous experiences, and in fact we believe that our method actually works for us.

4.      What are your customer's demographics?

I believe that our customer’s demographics are diverse, but mostly white people. We are accessible to any race/gender/sexuality and I think that what makes us unique is that we have a different style and that’s why our customers choose us.

5.      What kinds of media do your customers consume? 

I believe that my customers are able to find us by using internet and social media like Facebook, etc. We know that we have some customers reading magazines, but I think that most of our customers are more used to the use of internet.

6.      What activities have you done to actually discover and understand your 20 percent?

I know and I can assume and name the 30 customers that represent 20 percent of our business. I am aware of their loyalty to us and I am confident that they represent a significant portion of our sales.

7.      How often do they actively solicit feedback from customers?

We are focused on having feedback from customers. I personally go around and ask them if they think there is anything we could improve in the restaurant.

8.      What kinds of questions do you ask when you ask for feedback?

Most of the times, I go around asking them questions to uncover the unmet needs of customers. I base my research most of the times on asking atmospheric surveys to my customers. For example, last week I approached to different “loyal” customers and I could find out that they think it is a little dark inside sometimes. And now we are working on that matter.

Interviews to potential customers

Reflection

Based on the interviews to both, the customer and the owner of Boca Fiesta, I was able to realize that the owner adequately understand the customer needs. The customers provided answers that were similar to the objectives of the ideal target customer that Jacob Idhle described. It is amazing how popularity and the physical location of this restaurant has made this business so successful in Gainesville. I believe that not too many restaurants share the same advantage as Boca Fiesta, which is by far a common place to go for many people that visit the Downtown area of Gainesville. I believe that the fact that the owner has a clear idea of the customers that represent the 80 percent of his business’ sales is really important for the restaurant, because in this way he can exploit this sector of the market and make sure they are served as they want to be served.