Do you know one way to tell what businesses are competitive – and lucrative? Count how many ads you see on TV. On that basis, there’s huge money in drugs, pet food, automobiles, and…fast food. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box (my personal fave) and their brethren account for a huge chunk o’ change in the TV network’s up fronts. Fast food is big business. Every dollar they spend helps establish product positions and reinforce their formidable brands. TV spots don’t just encourage you to buy fast food – they tell you how you should feel about a particular fast food outlet, as well as how and why you’d want to crave their products. The spots (generally) do a masterful job. They promote a positive image of each chain.

And all that hard work can be shot to Hell in the blink of an eye by one bad experience at a drive-thru window.

This morning, my daugther got a late start, and as a result, we didn’t have time to prepare her sack lunch. No big…school is not far away from the Captain Digital Secret Lair. Mrs. Digital prevailed upon me to stop by a fast food emporium, find something relatively nutritious, and take it up to her. The school encourages parents to eat with their children from time to time, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, and get lunch for both of us.

I pulled into a local fast food outlet which could remain nameless (except that I believe in full disclosure – it was Burger King). I ordered our meals at the display that has the mic/speaker combo that must have been Korean War surplus – audio fidelity is to a fast food window what an accordion is to a symphony orchestra. I placed my order. The order taker on the other end of the tin can/string contraption read back the order, and got it wrong. No big – not like that’s the first time. I repeated the order. She got it wrong again. I corrected her, and read the entire order. I was instructed to pull up to the second window. Fair enough.

When I got to the window, she again asked me if I wanted drinks. I said, yes, as I told you before, I want  a Coke and a Pink Lemonade. (My daughter’s a 10 year old. Guess which one of us likes pink lemonade.)

The lady (speaking strictly genetically – she was to quickly prove she was NOT a lady in the chivalric sense of the word) said, “You don’t need to get rude with me! I don’t have to take that kind of s**t off you!”

Huh? All I said was that I’d already given her my drink order (three times, in fact) and that I wanted to make sure that she got our order right. I’d not been sarcastic, rude, or made any kind of confrontational, non-verbal communications that would give her any reason or justification whatsoever to go Medieval on me.

I said, “Look, I don’t want any trouble…I just want my food.” Again, she took the opportunity to ratchet things up exponentially. Again she cursed. Again she threatened.

At that point, I’d had enough. I asked to see the manager. When he appeared at the window, I said, “Look. I don’t appreciate being cussed out at a drive-thru window, and I doubt seriously that Burger King would approve of this either. I’ll give you a choice…you can discipline your employee in front of me right now, or I can call the zone office and ask them to have her fired – your choice.” (I’m normally a pretty even-keeled guy in public, but I don’t put up with service employees getting abusive with me, especially when I’ve done nothing to justify their behavior.)

The woman in question slammed some things around inside, and proclaimed, “I don’t need this “s**t…I’m outta here…I quit!”

I looked at the manager who perhaps saw his entire fast food career going up in flame-broiled customers, and said “well…it looks like that problem may have taken care of itself.”

In fairness to the manager, he did what you would expect a manager to do – apologize profusely, take personal responsibility, assure the customer that this incident was both unacceptable to him and the company, as well as an isolated one. In short, he did everything he could to pour oil on the troubled waters and smooth things over as best he could. He related that they’d just put in a new cash register system and everyone was stressing out over it.

I sympathized with him, but the simple fact of the matter is, employees can never take their own frustrations out on customers, unless the company is willing to turn customers into both ex-customers and evangelists who’s sole mission in life is to counteract every bit of positive image and goodwill the company has earned over their years in business.

So, to recap, Burger King spends millions on advertising to present a kind of “out there,” tongue-in-cheek image, one that is at the same time hip and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Their entire image was cratered by one employee with anger management issues and a less-than-firm grasp on how to prevent frustration from having a negative impact on customer retention.

Think about that. Millions of dollars spent to get people like me to go to Burger King, and every dime of it wasted by one bad employee.

Ouch.

Because the manager dealt with the problem quickly and appropriately, Burger King hasn’t lost a customer. However, the experience has left a bad tast in my mouth, and that’s not a good thing, especially if you’re peddling fast food. It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, and only a second or two to torpedo it. Bad news spreads at the quantum speeds – good news takes it’s own sweet time.

I’d say the King has received not a mortal wound, but at the very least a black eye. The thing is, Burger King has blown a ton of good will. Now I’m in the “show me” state of mind, where I will take every bit of their advertising with a very large grain of salt-substitute. Their image ran smack dab up against their reality, and reality won.

What this means for you is that no matter how carefully you craft a marketing campaign, customers are not won by CPMs. They are won, one at a time, and if a prospect’s or customer’s experience does not meet their expectations set by the marketing campaign, the marketing campaign will fail. Every time. That means that it’s absolutely essential to have every employee recognize how essential they are to the success of every marketing message. For they have the power to negate your marketing message, without spending so much as one thin dime.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 2:14 pm and is filed under advertising, marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.