May 16, 2008
And, you can’t find that out unless you are communicating with your customers. So, this month we are going to cover communication, all kinds of communication.
To start, I want to tell you about the days before voicemail and email. Really, there used to be such days. And, do you know how we conducted business way back then? We killed trees. We had briefcases full of paper, reports, recommendations, memos, and little pink message slips. And, do you know how we dealt with all this paper? I’m about to tell you.
Early in my career, my boss instructed me on how McDonald’s wanted me to deal with communication. Every phone message was to be answered in no more than 24 hours. Every memo was to be responded to in 24 hours. No piece of paper was to be handled twice. Read it, and do something about it immediately. No voicemail or email, and, somehow we did it. We set aside one or two hours a day for phone messages and mail. By the way, if Ray Kroc found a phone message on your desk that was older than one day, you were in real trouble. No french fries for a week.
Now, let’s fast forward to today.
Why is it that I can’t get anyone to talk to me? I call a company to buy something, complain about something, or heaven forbid, to compliment them. I get a computer menu. It takes me through nine choices, none of which bear any resemblance to what I need to talk about. And then there is silence. Never-ending silence. I don’t have any idea what to do. So, I push zero for an operator, and the system hangs up on me. (By the way, have you ever heard a menu with a choice to compliment the company?) First solution: All menus should start by giving me the choice to talk to someone. Second solution: If I get voicemail and someone doesn’t return the call in one day, I should get a coupon for something from the company. That’ll show ’em.
Same thing for e-mails. I know of someone who refers to e-mails as verbal promiscuity. We write way too much stuff, and, therefore, get way too much stuff back. It reminds me of an executive at McDonald’s who is famous for writing a seven-page memo on how to write a short memo. He never could figure out why we were all hysterical. And, by the way, have a place for me to contact the company on the Web site. Many don’t.
OK, so much for electronics. You work for a restaurant. And, you know you should talk to your customers because I have begged you to, and you know it’s right. Two things I have noticed recently. Whenever someone comes up to me in a restaurant, the usual question is, “How is everything?” The usual response is, “Fine,” because neither of us wants conflict. A better question is specific like, “Is your sandwich to your liking?” That makes me respond to just that thought and will probably lead to a conversation about the rest of my experience.
And, don’t forget the drive-thru. Sixty percent of your business can go through your drive-thru, and nobody talks to these poor folks except the plastic clown that takes their order. Walk the line, ask them about their experience or their last experience.
A good friend of mine told me a communication story that might be all too common in these days of trying to find folks to work at our restaurants. He walked into a well-known franchise and tried to order. There was only one person who understood English at the counter. So, this poor person was going from register to register translating the order into Spanish. Can you imagine the service times in that store? I also heard of a situation where a picture menu is handed to the customer with instructions to point to the picture of the product you want and hold up the number of fingers representing the amount of product. Wow!
Lastly, never communicate with a customer purely on the basis of their appearance. I have a favorite story about that:
I was working on my tractor back when I lived in Illinois. I decided not to cook that night and just pick up some chicken. I looked pretty dirty. I walked into the store and proceeded to order a hefty amount of food for carry out. The young lady looked at me, looked at the order amount, and said, “I’m going to have to see some money before I get your food.”
“OK,” says I. And, I proceeded to pull out a wad of twenties. She looked at the money, looked at me, and said, “Where did you get that?” That’s when I cracked up. After the transaction, I watched her stare as I got into my Lincoln and drove away. Never go on just appearances.
So talk to your customers, your crew, your suppliers. Get back to people in no more than 24 hours if they took the time to leave you a message. And, be as total of an information source as possible. Have nutrition information available. Have printed descriptions of your food to guard against possible allergy problems. Have printed descriptions of your promotions with all the conditions. And, I’m not talking about printed in type size that you need to be an eagle to read. For the life of me, I can’t understand why our industry still runs television and radio ads with the fast-talking dude at the end who disclaims everything the ad just said.
Don’t be the place where I have stood at the counter pleading for someone to take my money.
Peace, and happy trails
