Tom,
When my son was younger, it was nearly impossible to not take him to McDonald's occasionally.
What I often experienced and observed were incredibly long waits to get to the register and an unbelievable amount of activity behind the counter, but very little activity of taking money from customers and putting it in the cash register drawer. I came to the conclusion that this restaurant chain had discovered that the way to make money and succeed in business was to have a maximum of people running around behind the counter doing any number of things besides waiting on customers and minimizing the number of counter person's (cashiers). Perhaps the minimum number of cashiers was to hold down costs?
My point is this. Ask these employees what the store is in business for. I have done this. You will get all kinds of answers. To make a hamburger. To sell wall board cheaper. To offer a customer the ambience (Starbucks experience) they expect or that we wish them to experience. On and on and on.
Not once have I heard one of these employees tell me the business exists to make a profit! This is truly sad in my opinion. Personally, I think this is a bigger reason for customer service failures than for any other reason.
Look at businesses' mission statements. Less than half of them will mention profitability as a primary mission. Are they really being honest or is this really the explanation for their lackluster performance in their customer's eyes?
The next fault, also in my opinion, is that we have dulled ourselves into accepting this level of customer service as acceptable and so we are delivered only the level that we will accept/demand.
Have you ever got so disgusted with your experience that you make a comment loud enough for everyone to hear such as, "this is ridiculous and unacceptable" and proceed to put down what you were intending to purchase and walk out.
It is as if our culture and society has brainwashed our young into believing that to profit in business is obscene and immoral. Yes, I will accept that is true if the owner or directors are skimming/raping the business two hand deep. But even businesses that profit to grow and enrich the community, employees, and owner seem to have been smeared in the process.
By this standard, I see many retailers missing the mark, some much more so than others. Many operate at marginal profit margins or even in the red. The CEOs and the Directors seem to operate very well on the profit motive if their compensation packages are any indication. But their compensation should be tied more directly to how well they train and manage the employees that interact directly with their customers.
Now, many may argue that their compensation already is directly tied to how well they train and manage their employees that interact directly with their customers.. The profitability of the business directly reflects this. If this is the case, then their compensation packages do not reflect it directly enough, in my opinion.
This probably wasn't what you were interested in reading in the first place. I'm sorry to have hijacked your thread with my rant. Please accept my apology. I'll be quiet now.
Ben Cline
Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.
When my son was younger, it was nearly impossible to not take him to McDonald's occasionally.
What I often experienced and observed were incredibly long waits to get to the register and an unbelievable amount of activity behind the counter, but very little activity of taking money from customers and putting it in the cash register drawer. I came to the conclusion that this restaurant chain had discovered that the way to make money and succeed in business was to have a maximum of people running around behind the counter doing any number of things besides waiting on customers and minimizing the number of counter person's (cashiers). Perhaps the minimum number of cashiers was to hold down costs?
My point is this. Ask these employees what the store is in business for. I have done this. You will get all kinds of answers. To make a hamburger. To sell wall board cheaper. To offer a customer the ambience (Starbucks experience) they expect or that we wish them to experience. On and on and on.
Not once have I heard one of these employees tell me the business exists to make a profit! This is truly sad in my opinion. Personally, I think this is a bigger reason for customer service failures than for any other reason.
Look at businesses' mission statements. Less than half of them will mention profitability as a primary mission. Are they really being honest or is this really the explanation for their lackluster performance in their customer's eyes?
The next fault, also in my opinion, is that we have dulled ourselves into accepting this level of customer service as acceptable and so we are delivered only the level that we will accept/demand.
Have you ever got so disgusted with your experience that you make a comment loud enough for everyone to hear such as, "this is ridiculous and unacceptable" and proceed to put down what you were intending to purchase and walk out.
It is as if our culture and society has brainwashed our young into believing that to profit in business is obscene and immoral. Yes, I will accept that is true if the owner or directors are skimming/raping the business two hand deep. But even businesses that profit to grow and enrich the community, employees, and owner seem to have been smeared in the process.
By this standard, I see many retailers missing the mark, some much more so than others. Many operate at marginal profit margins or even in the red. The CEOs and the Directors seem to operate very well on the profit motive if their compensation packages are any indication. But their compensation should be tied more directly to how well they train and manage the employees that interact directly with their customers.
Now, many may argue that their compensation already is directly tied to how well they train and manage their employees that interact directly with their customers.. The profitability of the business directly reflects this. If this is the case, then their compensation packages do not reflect it directly enough, in my opinion.
This probably wasn't what you were interested in reading in the first place. I'm sorry to have hijacked your thread with my rant. Please accept my apology. I'll be quiet now.
Ben Cline
Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.
Last edited by:
Wants2rideFast: Nov 16, 04 8:14