Are you kidding me, they’re a real pain in my …?

It’s funny how a goof in your practice can be devastating!

Let me explain. You should have processes and strive to make them better every day. I think McDonald’s has set an example of having a system and 99 times out of 100 they follow their system. When you or I go to McDonald’s, we expect certain things to happen in a certain way. After all, it’s what McDonald’s does. They certainly aren’t known for their culinary expertise. I think you’d agree, 99 percent of the time, it’s fast, friendly service done correctly.

Once that precedence is set and you don’t fulfill the customer’s expectations … your business will suffer and not just the one time you drop the ball. That goes for McDonald’s and every other business.

Now, I know what you’re thinking … in fact, sarcastically, you might be thinking, “I’ll just not do it all that well in the first place. Then the customer won’t have high expectations.” Fail! That is not the correct answer. Here’s the correct answer: Set a high standard and strive to reach it!

Here are a couple of examples of the system failing and it hurting business …
This past Sunday, Cathy, the kids and I stopped to get a quick bite to eat before celebrating Crista and Chad Tharp’s 15th wedding anniversary. We stopped first at Burger King … mistake number one. I ordered Cini-Mini’s, (a personal favorite) to which the guy at the register replied, “We don’t have any Cini-Mini’s.” So I changed my part of the order to a biscuit something only to hear a yell from the back, “We’re out of biscuits!” We left.

The next stop was at a McDonald’s just up the road where there were at least 12 people working at the counter and in the back. They seemed to be everywhere except where the nine customers were. Nine customers and only one register open! Can you believe it? The young lady at the only open register had an attitude too. The legendary service was slow, super slow in fact. I’ll probably still go to McDonald’s from time to time but you can bet it will definitely not be THAT McDonald’s.

Lastly, thanks to being a member of Tradebank, we use a certain dry cleaner to launder and starch my shirts. I love starched shirts! Cathy called them other day to try to figure out when we could either pick up our laundry or when they might deliver it to our house. The folks at the dry cleaners thought they had the phone on hold and they didn’t. You can see where this is going, can’t you? A heated conversation on their end of the phone ensued about, “They have too many shirts.” and “are you kidding me, they’re a real pain in my…?” among other comments that should have never been said and Cathy should have never heard.

Both of these situations could have been prevented. Set a high standard and strive to reach it every day in every way – through every process and every employee and every interaction!