I worked a little later than usual at the office tonight. I got off around 9:30 p.m. and, unfortunately, I had to swing through a retail fast-food chain to get something to eat. At this point and based on the fact that it was sleeting, I decided to go nearby and take the “lesser of evils” by visiting the local McDonalds. Uggh.
OK, I eat fast-food. Unfortunately, I’m not really one of those people who spends a lot of time worrying so much about my calorie intake or my fat grams. At least, not yet. So, while I prefer not to eat fast-food all the time, I’m not too opposed to it either. Especially, late at night.
However, these days, the retail service industry is absolutely terrible. Terrible. I drove through the drive-through at McDonalds and received horrible service.
This really is no longer uncommon. Retail service, especially fast food businesses, have terrible customer service. It’s become worse over the past 4-5 years in my opinion. What’s scary: “how much worse can it possibly get?”
A very nice sounding voice said: “Welcome to McDonalds, would you like to try one of our Southern Style Chicken Value meals?”
I said, “No thanks. I would like a #1 with no onions”.
Nothing special, the #1 on the menu. Should be easy. Of course, I did request “no onions”.
A not-so-nice-sounding, rude voice said: “Is that it?”
I said, trying to be nice, “I would also like a chocolate sundae and that’s it. Thank you”.
The woman said “strawberry?”
I said, very confused, “No, I would like a chocolate sundae.” (thinking, do they have strawberry sundaes?)
The woman said “fi fify two” (or something like that).
I was looking at the confirmation window – the one that is suppose to show the order, the pricing and the total. Yes, the one that is suppose to help me, the customer, show that I’m getting what I want for the right price. However, the order didn’t include the sundae – and the price wasn’t right.
Trying to be nice and just double check, I said “Did you get the sundae?”
Rudely, the woman said: “Yea I already got dat”
OK…. I drove around. I handed the woman my debit card, she grabbed it and slammed the window. That’s fine, I didn’t want to talk to you either. She handed me the card and slammed the window again. OK, that’s cool – screw you too. No “thank you”. No “have a good day”. No “please drive forward and your food will be ready”. Nothing. Just a nice window slamming in my face.
I drove forward. The guy at the second window – by the way, the restaurant and the drive through were empty, not one single customer was there besides me – he repeated the same discourteous pattern. He opened the window, handed me my bag and drink and slammed the window and walked off. No “thank you”. No “please come back”. No “thank you, have a good day”. Nothing. Just a nice window slamming in my face. Gosh, please let my order just be correct, I better check before I drive off.
And this is not uncommon. Not just for McDonalds, but all retail food establishments these days. It’s gotten so bad, that I almost refuse to even go there anymore – unless I have to. These guys are lucky food is perishable and its required to live.
I was reflecting on how things might be different. McDonalds probably spends many millions of dollars training their management and franchise teams on service quality. They do, right? They obviously spent money on their recorded welcome greeting at the drive-up menu – as it sounds the same as the one down the street. Why did they do this? Well, most likely because they wanted a friendly, consistent voice that presented a nice upsell opportunity… something that their paid employees never do anymore. If you can even get them to get the order correct, you’re lucky. If you can get warm food – boy, double hit for you.
So, where has service quality gone in these establishments? Why can’t they simply train their employees to “act nice”. Just pretend. Humor me, would you? I really don’t care if you don’t like your job – sometimes I don’t like mine – but I really like when I get paid for performing a service for someone. And I always make sure I say “thank you”. Even when I’m upset or the customer is unappreciative, I still try to retain some level of professionalism and cordial appearance. Just a nice “thank you”. It’s easy. Heck, you could even say “Gracias” to me – I know a little bit of Spanish. I would be fine with that. Just pick a language, Farsi would be fine too (I’d have to figure out what that would be). Just say “thanks”. Slang would be fine, too. “Yo man, ‘preciate it – check ya latr” would be completely acceptable to me. Just a simple appreciation for that fact that I handed over seven bucks for a measly, processed hamburger and salty fries would be nice.
Or, I have an alternative proposal: just put the employees in the back, hidden. Give me a computer touch screen or even an automated IVR system – or call center agent in India – and let me talk to it. I’d be fine with doing the punching on the keypad to ring up my order myself. Swipe my own card. Take my own receipt. Pull around. Just hand me the food, but, please give me a “have a nice day” – in any language – just pretend to be glad you just made seven bucks.
technorati tags: mcdonalds, retail, service, quality, fastfood
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