I happen to enjoy food in many forms: from the exquisite sushi experience that only Nobu can provide to a homemade batch of true Texas Chili. However, I don’t think there is any meal more perfect than a cheeseburger dressed simply with lettuce, mayonnaise, and red onions. One Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I wanted – no, I needed – a cheeseburger.
It had been a long day of cleaning the house and I was settling in to watch my beloved Texas A&M Aggies play football. As the first quarter turned to the second, my bride and I looked at each other and proclaimed that we were hungry. More importantly, we also made it clear that neither of us wanted to cook, which meant someone had to leave the comfy confines of our home to procure sustenance. Being the adults we are, we settled it in true grown-up fashion: we played rock, paper, scissors. Thankfully, I know her penchant for always picking paper first, allowing me and my victorious scissors to remain in front of the television.
We settled on Hardee’s as we both wanted a cheeseburger because, candidly, the similar options from the usual fast food chains just weren’t that appealing. She returned after about 20 minutes and I eagerly met her in the kitchen, ready to devour my meal.
As I pulled the burger box out of the bag, I began to have my usual white-knuckle experience as fast food orders tend to be wrong about 93 percent of the time; things like mustard instead of mayonnaise, the addition of pickles, or even the insertion of a vile tomato slice. This, however, was something I never encountered in my extensive history of fast food meal mistakes: My cheeseburger had no meat. That’s right, I was given a bun dressed as ordered with cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise, and red onion – just no hamburger patty.
After my wife and I stopped laughing, it became clear that the worker who processed the order took the statement of “lettuce, mayonnaise, and onions only” quite literally. As I looked at my meatless bun, I wondered how anyone could make such a gargantuan mistake. Does Hardee’s have a large clientele that orders cheeseburgers without the meat?
While my empty stomach growled angrily at me, I realized that the Hardee’s employee training is really to blame. In almost every area of customer service, the humanity, logic, and personal connection has been removed in favor of following the system “by the book.” This lack of empowerment and trust of front line employees is why big, obvious things like a cheeseburger without a meat patty are overlooked without a second thought.
Even if the way the meal was ordered had been confusing, the person taking the order never asked for clarification. Instead, he assumed that some loon wanted a cheeseburger without the meat and followed the order to the letter rather than engaging the customer to ensure that he understood what was wanted. In other words, the Hardee’s training doesn’t allow for freedom of thought: it’s execute as quickly and efficiently as possible before moving on to the next customer.
Speed of service simply cannot come at the cost of client experience if a brand hopes to survive long term.
When front line staff aren’t empowered to be inquisitive, engaging, and curious, the entire client experience is put at risk: wrong assumptions will take place, big mistakes will be made, important questions won’t be asked, and, worst of all, a lack of true client care will be on display. Employees – especially the ones who interact with clients – must be given the autonomy and freedom to think on behalf of the client. If they aren’t, you run the risk of delivering the marketing equivalent of a meatless cheeseburger.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. In 2014, he launched brandivate – the first executive outsourcing company solely focused on helping small and medium sized-promotional products enterprises responsibly grow their business. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, developing operational policies and procedures, creating and developing winning RFP responses, and presenting winning promotional products solutions to Fortune 500 clients. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.