A friend and I pulled into the drive through of a new fast food restaurant a few days ago. We were on our way to a meeting and we just wanted to grab a quick bite on the way. We placed our order, paid for our food at the payment window, and then pulled forward to the pick up window. There was one other car in front of us, but we didn’t expect the wait to be too bad. Soon another car pulled up behind us, and then one behind them. Still, the first car didn’t move. There seemed to be no activity at all at the window.
After waiting in line for over 10 minutes, I would have just driven off, except we were blocked by cars in front and back. Finally, my friend got out of the car, walked inside, asked for the manager, who was somewhere in a back office, and complained about the length of time it was taking to get our food. The manager glanced back at the drive through window, only to discover that there was NO ONE THERE! Apparently the person assigned to the drive through window had gone on break and left the window unattended. Sacks filled with orders were piling up on the counter (ours included), but there was no one there to open the window and hand them out!
According to my friend, the manager went berserk, started yelling at someone to get over to the window, and made quite a spectacle of herself for the dine-in customers. We did get our food, along with a free cake, but we were almost late to our meeting. It would be easy to blame the delay on some lazy, thoughtless high-school kid, but I was left wondering about the manager. What was the manager doing for the over 15 minutes that the pick window was unattended? What kind of training – or lack of training – gave the drive through attendant the idea he could just wander off when customer orders were piling up? I know you don’t expect much from a fast food joint, but you should at least have a reasonable expectation that someone will be at the window to hand you your warmed over, high fat, over priced meal. The manager dropped the ball here.
Fast food restaurants staffed mostly by kids are an easy target to complain about customer service, but what about a major retail home improvement entity that closes all of its TV commercials with a promise that “we can help?” One of these stores is located close to my house, and I have gone there numerous times to make a purchase, and so far I have found no one who is willing to help. As I wander the aisles looking for a washer or a fixture or a sprinkler head or the right tool to change my lawn mower sparkplug, I might as well be invisible. I have never had anyone ask me if they could help me; usually, I finally stop a harried worker who is headed somewhere else and ask for help, only to be given vague directions with the wave of a hand in the general direction of the aisle where my part might be located. In the several years that I have shopped there, I have never encountered an expert who could answer any of my technical questions.
But here is something else I have found out from talking to employees of this store: they are provided with only limited training, the pay scale is embarrassingly low, their hours are strictly limited so that most of them do not qualify for benefits, and the managers maintain an inflexible scheduling policy that makes it difficult for employees to adjust to the needs of their families. Given these conditions, why should employees care at all about customer service? They aren’t getting treated well enough, or paid well enough, to take pride in anything or care about anything.
When employees are treated like commodities, that is how customers will be treated, too. I understand that companies are under tremendous pressure these days to protect margins and boost profits, even as customers are tightening their purse strings so they can afford basics like gasoline and food. Still, when you don’t provide your employees with adequate encouragement, training, support and the opportunity to be rewarded for exceptional service, you end up cutting of your nose to spite your face. Even in times when customers must pinch pennies, they still have a choice to either do business with you or go down the street. If you want them to keep coming back, the most profitable thing you can do is implement employee policies that will help your employees feel proud to be a part of your organization.
Customers have known for a long time that they get what they pay for. When it comes to customer service, companies will always and only get the customer service results that they are willing to invest in and support, too. These days, no one can afford to lose a good customer because of bad customer service. As for me, I am looking forward to the opening of another home improvement store in my area, coming soon.
Make sure your organization takes care of the people who take care of your customers, and your business, and your profits, will take care of themselves.
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May Customer Service Quick Tip – Make Promises and Keep Them
These days, people seem to say anything and do nothing. It is tempting to promise something in hopes the customer will choose you, and then hope you can find a way to deliver later. That is the best way to not only lose this customer, but all the potential customers this person will talk to about your failure. Anytime you can make a promise and keep it, your company will stand out from the rest, but don’t over promise. It isn’t worth the risk of damaging your reputation and your customer relationships.
