Success of Fast Food Restaurants Starts With How Customers Order Their Food

A few years ago, I took my operations management team on a field trip in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. The destination? Fast food restaurants. The purpose? To experience how process design impacts customer experience, and ultimately the success of the establishment.

Our first stop: McDonalds. The five of us crammed into a tight crowded area, spreading out into separate lines in front of a register. The five order takers were busily moving their specific lines as fast as they could, but large complicated orders were clogging up the line, slowing the pace. While the order was being filled, people milled in front of the register waiting. And when the food arrived, people would grab napkins, stirrers and straws from containers at the register. The result: A crowded mess and unhappy customers.

Lesson learned: In that location, McDonalds probably did 75% of its overall business during lunch, yet it was clear that the lobby was just not big enough. The separate lines for each register, the lack of space for waiting customers, and the fulfillment of napkins at the same place made the purchase experience completely problematic.

Our next stop: Wendy's. When we entered the restaurant, there was a feeling of order...a single line organized with rope barriers guiding people. When a register opened, the next person in line moved to that spot. When the single line became long, a Wendy's person came out and took orders for each person in line, giving them a slip of paper to hand to the register clerk for faster ordering and payment. Once an order was given, the customer shifted to the side where condiments and napkins were available, making plenty of room for the next customer. Once the order was ready, the customer was called, and the food was given. The result: a fast and responsive system.

Lesson learned: Given that orders are not uniform, the Wendy's line systen eliminated the unlucky line selection from the process. As well, the ordering and the fulfillment process were separated so as to keep the flow moving. Lastly, when the line queued up during rush hour, Wendy's employees came out from behind the counter to take "pre-orders" so that when the customer made it to the register, the transaction was sped up dramatically.

Our last stop: Sbarro's Italian. This food setup is cafeteria-style, in that customers take a tray and single file move their way through the selections. Seeing and smelling the food was a lot different than just ordering from a board. HYowever, the speed of this process was totally dependent upon the orders of the people in front of you. If you just wanted a slice of pizza and a fountain drink, the speed of your order may be a minute if the line is short, but 10 minutes if the person in front of you ordered four calzones. The result: the potential for extreme delay.

Lesson learned: Single queues with variable service times may be the easiest of all processes to set up, but have the real potential to clog up. Here you are only as fast as the slowest order.

My View:

Commitment to service is more than just enthusiastic employees and encouraging posters. Sometimes the commitment is also in the thoughtful design of the service delivery itself.

These three restaurants were within a block of each other, competing for basically the same clientele...the business employee. The criteria--good food in quick delivery--was the same for all three. Yet, each designed its delivery differently...and according to my operation management team, with different results.

Wendy's clearly understood and designed its process to deliver. Its single line system with different areas for ordering and pickup sped up the process. Its contingency plan to take pre-orders enabled the process not to get bogged down the volumes increased.

McDonalds was poorly designed, from process to lobby space. The entire experience left the customer wanting better.

And Sbarro's restaurant, while showcasing its food, created a potential for severe bottlenecks, especially for those ordering quick items. When a slice and a Coke take 15 minutes to order, no matter how good the food is, the customer will be unhappy.

When a company makes the commitment to deliver permium service, understanding how it is delivered and the impact on satisfaction is critical. Then the company can design its processes to deliver. This is one of the themes within "Perfect Service."

Get Rid Of Automated Voice Response Systems; Let Call Center Reps Service Your Customers!

Bill Taylor, co-founder of FastCompany Magazine, recently blogged about a particular customer experience that we all face--and we all hate. That of the Automated Call Centers or Voice Response Systems. These are the mazes of telephonic options callers are forced to navigate in order to either get an answer to their query or to talk to a customer service representative.

Everyone hates them. To read his blog article:

http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2010/11/press_3_if_automation_is_makin.html

Despite efforts to make them "human-like" or friendly, their function continues to be to try to filter away all unnecessary calls that humans are required to take. Despite their universal distaste, there is not a company in the land that does not utilize the technology. Why? The cost of an automated call is pennies compared with the dollars it takes for a human response.

Taylor believes we have it all wrong. Instead of thinking about call centers as expenses to be minimized, leading to more automation efforts, he thinks businesses should view them as business centers that are there to enhance the business through service.

"It's worth noting that some of the most successful, advanced, cutting-edge consumer brands I've gotten to know over the last few years explicitly reject the idea that that customer service is a cost to be cut rather than an strategic advantage to be honed," Taylor writes.

My View:

For years, the Automated Voice Response system has been used for two purposes: 1. To route calls to the correct location, and 2. To answer routine questions in a fast and efficient manner.

With the advent of convenient centralized toll-free 1-800 numbers, companies need to be able to get callers to their needed departments. This need still exists.

However, the second purpose, to deliver routine information, has become obsolete as the Internet is clearly a superior choice for users. Therefore, account balances, transaction statuses, trade instructions, and more are no longer needed on the telephone system. In fact, they are now negative in that call tree menus are way too long and impact customer satisfaction. My wife just called the State Department of Consumer Protection for a business matter and endured nine levels of menus before she was able to speak to the correct person. Frustrating, even though she got the answer she wanted very quickly from the person.

Moreover, Taylor and others argue that a personal conversation is an asset rather than an expense. I wholeheartedly agree. Call center customer service representatives give companies the ability to:

--reinforce the Customer Service experience through caring, expertise and efficient handling of the call;
--identify opportunities for up-selling or cross-selling the company's other offerings;
--identify issues that a customer has with the company's services or products before they leave for the competition;
--collect data about customers' satisfaction with service or product that can be used for future enhancements.

Call centers can be the best asset a company has for satisfaction, retention and growth. Why companies continue to invest in technology to prevent that conversation from happening is short-sighted.

Great At Delivering Service? The Best Strategy Is To Tell Everyone About It!

This morning I commented on a blog from the Harvard Business Review about "Understanding Customer Experience" written by Adam Richardson. He tries to define what Customer Experience is as well as to document steps to design the experience. He cites the usual suspects when describing companies that get it right--Zappos, Southwest Air, Google, etc.

This list got me thinking. Why do we always go to these companies when listing great service providers? How do companies break through to be viewed as "legendary?" I have cited Zappos, and yet I have never bought a pair of shoes from them. I have purchased numerous items from Amazon.com (Zappos new parent) and have been very impressed with them, but they rarely make the same list. Why?

Here is my comment:

Adam--

I think part of the reason that Zappos, Southwest and others are consistently cited as being prime examples of delivering premier customer experience is because the companies themselves tell you that they are. It is part of their image campaign that starts at the top and cascades down the organization. Even our mentioning those companies enhances their image.

One company I worked for years ago improved its customer satisfaction scores on an industry survey by writing a timely letter to its customers reminding them of the great job our firm was doing for them. In short, we gave them the words that they then echoed on the survey. The result--improved scores.

Companies that "full body commit" to their strategy and service image are more likely to gain this reputation. Have I had the same bad experiences flying Southwest as I have had at Delta? Sure. But I give Southwest the benefit of the doubt for a bad experience or two because I am bombarded with messages telling me they are great.

I would encourage any company that commits internally to designing a premier customer experience (which is vitally important) to spend as much time thinking through the external portrayal of their services. And then to aggressively play offense. If you keep telling me that you are the best, I might believe it, and maybe even tell my friends.

--Christopher W. Myers

My View

You can read the blog here:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/10/understanding_customer_experie.html

I think, in addition to providing great service, these companies also market themselves as service champions. When you go on the Zappos website, there are dozens of reminders that are in your face telling you about their great service. From awards to customer testimonials to bumper stickers saying "I heart Zappos.com." They tell you they are great, and then we believe them.

Then bloggers and business writers and academians pick up the torch and run with it, citing the extraordinary service.

When companies decide to make the journey to becoming a premier service provider, and commit to designing a uniquely satisfying customer experience, they also need to commit to an aggressive campaign to tell everyone about it. That is almost as important as delivering the experience.

"Customer Experience" In All Industries Needs Same Process As Service Companies

When I study lists of companies that claim to want to differentiate competitively based on customer experience, I am heartened to see companies that I wouldn't have associated with "services" beginning to focus on the customer. Retail stores, computer companies, telephone companies, car dealers, are all sounding like pure service organizations these days. Clearly, the "purchase" experience or the "usage" experience, or even the "disposal" experience, are all important when thinking through satisfaction.

"When the customer is centric to the company's design, changes throughout the company happen!"

For example, in the retail world, some of the steps a shopper walks through in a store will add up to a good or bad customer experience. From Bruce Temkin at Forrester Research, http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/walgreens-rolls-out-customer-centric-retailing/ many of these stores are now focusing on each opportunity and redesigning stores to accomodate. Steps include:

Wayfinding: From walking into the store until you find the right area
Browsing: Comparing multiple products within a category
Studying: Evaluating an individual product or products
Getting Help: Finding answers to questions along the way

So some stores are changing shelf heights and widening aisles, limiting variety of each item, providing more information about choices, and training clerks to be more informed. All in the name of improving the customer experience.

My View

The new thinking about "Customer Experience" can be useful when designing an overall premium service offering.

For those companies, such as retail stores, who depend upon sales of tangible goods, premium customer experience will lead to location loyalty and more sales of those goods. When the customer is centric to that company's design, changes throughout the company happen. For that retail store, reduced inventory means less dollars spent on idle merchandise and more focus on developing knowledgeable staff.

Most interestingly will be how these companies gain insight as to how well these changes are satisfying their customers. And then what process is used to continually improve these experiences.

This becomes even more critical when "service" is the good that is sold. Therefore, how the service is offered, delivered, consumed, and evaluated, must be designed in a way that satisfies the customer.