Key Concepts:
Communication
Altruism

 
Situation:
In the early and mid 2000’s I frequented fast food burger places, much more than I do currently.  I remember pulling into the drive through at a local Burger King.  My typical MO was to order off the value menu; a burger (or two) and a drink.

On a very normal day, I’m about to have a very memorable experience.  I placed the following order with a pleasant sounding young lady; Rodeo Burger, Double Cheese Burger and King Sized Diet Coke. I pulled up to the window and paid for my food mentally calculating that it felt a bit much (nearly $5 rather than $4), then I was handed a bag with my two burgers and Large (King) fries.  I explained that I didn’t order fries and wanted a King-Sized diet coke.  We reviewed the order and the young lady (clearly high school age) easily made the appropriate corrections with the food and the payment.  We shared some small talk, I didn’t notice anything odd about her behaviour the small talk was pleasantHowever, as I pulled away from the drive through window I heard the young lady shout in an angry tone “You said KING FRIES!”  I was stunned, I stopped in the middle of the parking lot and glanced in the rear view mirror to see the girl’s head duck back through the drive through window.

I sat in my car for a good minute, did I hear correctly?  Yes, for sure I heard what was said and the science nerd in me even marveled at observing the doppler effect as I replayed the last few minutes in my head.  The next thought, should I go in and say something?

 
Outcome:
In the end, I decided it wasn’t my business, not worth my time, and drove off.  I kept this example for our contact center training sessions.  Depending on the training topic or questions when the discussion lead to handling difficult customers and keeping one’s own ego in check.  I would use this as an example where a situation occurred, was easily corrected, then made worse because one’s ego got in the way.  For what it is worth, that BK location closed down, the building was remodeled and is currently a Wendy’s.  I also have limited my intake of fast food and I’m 20 lbs lighter now as a result.

Feedback/Discussion (please respond in the comments!):
Communication – Clearly there was some breakdown in communication.  What I ordered (or what I thought I ordered), wasn’t what was initially received, and required some maintenance to fix both the order and payment.  Not sure where the breakdown occurred, drive through speaker technology has been the butt of many jokes through the 80s and 90s so that is a possibility.  Regardless of “fault” the last piece of communication “You said KING FRIES!” was completely unnecessary and only served to alleviate a bruised ego.  Have you experienced something like this first hand?  Have you observed or listened to a second or third hand account?  In a contact center environment what tips or trainig does your teams do to prevent errant/inflammatory communication from being inserted in email, chat, or verbalized over the phone?

Altruism – In this case I cannot know how this young lady’s day is going, what her work history is, if she was currently in a performance improvement plan or if she is unusually sensitive to her own errors.  Whatever the case may be, the situation was handled great!  So what happened?  Why the need to cast blame or say what was said?  By the same token she wouldn’t know how my day was going, if I have some speech impairment or if that comment would have set me off and caused me to storm into the location looking for her manager.  What percentage of escalations do you think are directly linked to “customer facing” folks serving their own ego and not the customer?  What tips or training do you do to assist your teams to focus on the task at hand? How do you empower the team to not allow customer rudeness or mistakes from performing their jobs?