Bad Customer Service

 03/08/2026

I do not think that companies actually teach customer service anymore (except maybe Chick-fil-A, which has it figured out). Most of the time, it feels like they just hire them and throw them out to the wolves, hoping they show up tomorrow. I cannot tell you how many drive-thrus I've been in where I wonder, "Where the hell did they get this person?"

Here are some scary facts about how poor service can affect your business.

Knowledge is power!

• Most business people think they have few dissatisfied customers because most do not complain.

1. Think of your own record as a consumer and as a complainer. How often have you been dissatisfied with a product, a service, a meal in a restaurant, or a wait in line?
2. How often have you complained to the management, the manufacturer, or the retailer?

• A recent study indicated that the average business never hears from 96 percent of its unhappy customers.

1. While 96 percent of the unhappy customers do not complain to you, they do let off steam and spread their dissatisfaction with the product or service.
2. They complain to other customers and potential customers -family, friends, and associates at work, and anyone else who will listen.
3. They feel wronged and frustrated and want to talk about it.

• For every complaint received, the average business has another 26 customers with problems, at least six of which are serious.

1. Customers who have problems and complain are giving you a chance to keep their business.
2. An unhappy customer cannot be kept quiet. However, you can regain their support by solving complaints quickly.
3. These customers may not only come back but also give them something positive to talk about.
4. Surveys show that you can win back between 54 and 70 percent of these complainers by resolving their complaints.
5. According to consumer surveys, a person who has had an unpleasant experience with a business will tell 9 or 10 other people.

• Approximately 13 percent will tell more than 20 other people.

1. This negative word-of-mouth can be very harmful to a business.
2. In today's complex marketplace, more and more consumers are basing their purchasing decisions on the advice of people they know.
3. Results indicate that up to 95 percent of this group will become loyal customers again if their complaints are handled well and promptly.

• It is 13 times more expensive to attract new customers than to keep your current ones! A copy of these facts and more like them is at the University of Michigan Extension and can be found at: http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modtd/33209845.html
  
  Thankx for Reading my Rant!
  
  BigMike
  
  

 

Boomer talks about Telephone etiquette

 Today on Boomer Talks:

We need a course taught in every school to teach people how to behave on the telephone !! My God, we are terrible, inefficient, and just downright dumb sometimes.

The Big Mike Rant - Boomer Talks about Making Change

Boomer talks about

How to teach a Cashier or Server
to properly count back your change !!

Musings of a Computer Madman (Ebook digital download)

 My Book titled "Musings of a Computer Madman (Ebook digital download)" is available for sale in my Etsy store. This is a complete faithful replica of my book entitled "Musings of a Computer Madman" , and is for sale here in PDF format.

This exact book is also also a paperback available on Amazon at:

Buy the Book On Amazon

On my Etsy site, it is available for purchase at:

Download the Book here

 By separate agreement, I can also provide this book in just about any e-reader format.

This is a digital and downloadable PDF file. The photo is an exact replica of the book for sale on Amazon. The book is accessible as a digital download file for you and upon purchase, you will receive a link to download the digital file. This file is about 700 kb and should download pretty fast on most internet connections.

Note - Digital purchases cannot be downloaded through the Etsy app for the time being. Please read Etsy’s full article here: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/3949 This listing is for a digital download. No physical product will be shipped. Colors may vary due to differences in monitors.

Colors may vary due to differences in monitors.

As the Burger Turns part 11

Wednesday, July 15th,2020 at about 4:30 a.m. or so.

I took a tour of Northwest Georgias finest Medial Facilities for the last two days. I'm beaten up tired. Sorry, its sorta short today. Oomph.

On this day 20 years ago in a couple of hours, I became a Grandpa for the first time. I was only 42 or so and thought I was too young to be called that name so I opted for something else until my wife gently reminded me that it wasn't really up to me, that the womenfolk and the grandkids ultimately decide who gets called what. They decided that she was too young for example to be called Grandma so they opted for Nana for her, and because it didn't matter what I thought, not a tiny little bit, shut up and go get coffee or sit down and go amuse yourself, I am called PaPa. I like it anyway, and love to hear my actual and pseudo grandchildren call me that name. Hell, I would probably answer to anything if one of them said it, Anything except can we have money that is.

So anyhow, having said all of that, Happy Birthday, James Bishop!!
Papa loves you and misses you every day.

Disclaimer: The title of this post is the start of my soap opera for old people called "As the Burger Turns"  Anyway, to make this clear right from the start, everything in this post is created from my own recollections, which may be faulty because I am old, or because I choose to lie about it, take your pick. At any rate, everything I post here belongs to me, the good the bad and the ugly, and is a product of my highly developed imagination. If I use a situation that you know about and it was actually different, then shaddup! , just read it and don't ruin a good story with a correction about some trivial things called facts. It's a story, stories are based on what people think and everybody knows that people lie.

I post that disclaimer on the Steak `n Shake stuff because I know eventually I will get it wrong and somebody will want me to correct it. I don't want to spend all day fact-checking my memories so hell to the no, I won't go.

So anyhow when we last left our intrepid young restaurant manager, he had been appointed the GM at a tiny ass little store at 4105 E. Washington St know affectionately as Little East, where if one did a DNA analysis of the underlying soil in that location I am sure you would find gallons and gallons of sweat just soaked into that soil because of how hard you had to work there to cook a burger and then get it served. 

A lot of people didn't make it after being assigned there because of the effort it required due to the lack of staffing created by the lower sales volume. Its an anachronism of the restaurant business that most if, not EVERY company has sliding budgets that are based on your sales volume. Almost none of them take into account the effect that a very low sales history has on the ability to deliver quality products in a reasonable amount of time. I know that things are not like back "in the good old days", but it is sorta ridiculous then and now to expect a 5-minute service from a 60-foot production line where the manager and maybe 3 other people are making an extensive SKU heavy menu. 

So anyway day after day you come to work at 0 dark hundred, do whatever paperwork you have to do to get the store ready to open, get yourself and the staff assigned various tasks that make the store ready for business. You have to get the preparation line stocked, tools and implements put on each respective station, clean everything, stock each station with food and condiments (based on whatever daypart is being prepared), run whatever reports, place any orders for future delivery that are needed and all the misc tasks that come up in this time frame. Before we started serving breakfast this was about 60-90 minutes of prep time and after we started it was about 30-90 minutes because A lot of time we were open while this was going on. 

This is where the secret and the science of staffing a store merge together. You wanted the very best people to work for you however sometimes that was the secondary characteristic you looked for because it was occasionally better to have somebody who would bring their ass to work no matter what, than it was to have someone who was a great cook, but would drive you crazy with their reliability issues even if the issues were legitimate. For example, I once had a super-duper prep/breakfast cook who was just about the best cook I had ever seen, except she was late or missed work all the time because she had a special needs child that affected her ability to meet her schedule on a regular basis. It made me nuts trying to figure out how to accommodate her and take care of the business needs at the same time. It also drove the other employees nuts covering for her and making up for her when she missed a day.

I remember actually discussing this with my District Manager while I was a tiny bit frustrated about it and talking it over with my peers in meetings a few times by asking their opinions about what they would do. I got good advice from my peers and also learned that it was usually a bad idea to ask your boss how to solve problems in the store because he usually had a dumbass answer that didn't help any, or at least it didn't help me at all. My peers had several creative solutions and I ended up using one of their suggestions to solve the issue enough so that everybody was happy and the work got done. 

That's really all I cared about. Did the work get done? Were the jobs accomplished? If you could answer yes, then I say go get another cup of coffee and move on to the next problem. I was incredulous when my boss told me I should let her go and tell her to file for unemployment and then just let her have the unemployment check as it would fix my problem and she would still have money until she found another job. She was a great crew member who had a special needs child and his compassionate answer was fire her and let her have the unemployment. What a great human he was. 

Can you believe that? It really pissed me off to hear that but in my defense, I didn't say anything because I knew if I did, it wasn't going to be professional, calm, or polite. 

Better I just shut my face.

I think this is why I have been told I didn't have the "Killer-Instinct" required that it took to get to the next level of supervision because I thought stuff like this was cold-hearted, bad management, and just plain stupid. It also reinforced for me how I used to think the dumbest people got promoted to DM in the first place. It seemed like a dumbass contest to me and that wasn't dispelled until years later when a fella named Ed was made District manager and I thought he was pretty brilliant. I do remember and wondered if they knew how smart he was though, and thought maybe when they found out (they being the Division Manager or others like or above him) they would be unhappy because it was pretty hard to manipulate Ed and feed him bullcrap. 

Turns out I was wrong about that too but that's a different story for another day.

Anyhow, I was sorta just stunned and stood there with my mouth open dragging the floor, thinking to myself "Are you really this stupid"? Then it dawned on me that I was the one that was the dumbass for bringing it up to him, to begin with. I forgot the rules of operation I had created for myself. Rule #1 was "Never ever forget who or what you are dealing with.", and being as I already thought he was a dipshit before this and that he was one of those guys who was more worried about looking good rather than being good, I don't know what was going through my mind when I asked him about this in the first place. It was a stupid move on my part. I remember saying "Thankx for the advice" and moving on to something else. Anyway, I didn't take his advice, I did not let her go and came up with something else entirely different. I asked the employee if she could make plans to come in or stay late one day and talk to me sometime in the afternoon. I made it simple enough and couched it in terms soft enough so that she wasn't left wondering if she was going to be fired because I had said something like "I need to talk with you at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

The next week she made arrangements to come in for a sit-down, I made arrangements to have all the bases covered so I didn't have to jump up every ten minutes to run the store and we explored solutions to the problem. Here is the funny part. She already knew it was a problem, she already had been thinking about how to fix it and she had already figured out how to fix it before she even sat down. I sort of began the conversation by telling her that the store had a problem however I also thought she was a wonderful employee and wanted to talk to her about it. She smiled, teared up a little bit, said she had wanted to talk to me about a problem she had too, and wanted to know if it had to do with her schedule interruptions? When I sort of acknowledged that yes that was what it was about, it almost seemed as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. 

At this point, I was worried that she was going to resign because she looked so relieved.

Instead, she told me the story about how she never wanted the heavy responsibility of being an opening employee but she loved working for Steak `n Shake and had a family history going back to her Grandmother who had worked for the brand and didn't want to jeopardize her job or do anything to get fired. She said she knew it was hard on the store covering for her all the time and it made her sort of unpopular with some of the other crew because she was always ruining someone's days off. She also said she had been trying to talk to someone about her proposed solution (I had been here about 2 months at this point) through the last 2 General managers and they never stayed long enough or seemed interested enough in fixing the problem. She said she had worried and worried about losing her job to the point that she thought her husband was going to make her quit because of all the self-imposed stress she has put on herself. Keep in mind dear reader I had not said a word to her about the problem before this day, not a single word.

So I said in the softest voice I could use and still be heard, something to her like, "I'm all ears, tell me how do we fix it?"

Keep in mind there are really three elements to the problem. 

1. One was when she was scheduled to "Open" meaning one of the first employees to arrive, whenever she had to call in because of her child, it created a hole in the getting ready schedule.
2. Two was when she was the cook, you had to replace the cook, for breakfast, which let's face it, was impossible, You would just have to do it yourself. If anyone ever saw me cook breakfast, you would immedialtely know what that's a bad idea. 
3. Three when she as the food prep person, somebody had to do food prep. So If she was forced to call in for the entire shift, you were screwed, and no matter how good she was when she was there, you were screwed when she wasn't. It turns out that one day when the DM was there running the store because the previous GM had resigned, he got stuck by this and the day was a nightmare. It was a gloriously bad day for everyone, and that was why he didn't like her. 

Like I said he was short-sighted, a part of the promote the dumbest people you can find campaign, and didn't like for his hair to get messed up, so as far as he was concerned she had to go.

I simply sat and listened to her as she laid out the solutions as she proposed them and it was so elegant and clean it was beautiful. It wasn't what I thought it was as I didn't know about a sister, however, she was keeping in her mind the store and using the exact same number of crew hours as before she proposed these things, this is basically what she came up with although I don't exactly remember all that was said, it was something like this. 

1. One -Was to allow her to shift some of the more labor-intensive chores to the evening shift and she would come in at night and complete these tasks after the kids were in bed and as she only lived down the street (about 3 blocks away), it wasn't a burden on her at all. 
2. Two -I should hire her little sister who was looking for a part-time job to help pay the bills. She said I will train her and make sure she can do the job as well as I can. 
3. Three -Let her sister stay come in her place and then stay through lunch when she could not be there which would replace her on the schedule and nobody would be inconvenienced. In these three ways the problems would be solved, she would keep her job, her sister would get a job, the store would run and everybody was happy. I was skeptical at first because of several things but told her I would think about it and wanted to interview her sister.

A couple of days later her 16-year-old sister sat down across from me and gave one of the best job interviews I ever conducted. She was nervous as all get out and stumbled though the answers a little, but man! the energy, the passion, the enthusiasm, you couldn't beat it. I hired her and began the process of training her and etc. Let the paperwork begin!

I remember a few days later as I was talking to her older sister why she had never brought her up to apply before this and she told me that before I start cleaning the house and getting rid of the thieves and etc she didn't want her sister working there. It just goes to show you, it is true to say the crew knows everything that goes on if you just listen to what they have to say. I can honestly say I learned this skill as an assistant manager working with Bill Duncan at East 38th street because he was always telling me to shut up and listen, and it always paid off for me whenever I remembered to use it. 

Later on, both Jackie and Virginia said it was a no brainer hiring her sister because she was as good or better than her older sister ever was. I felt like a genius and know I didn't do anything to fix it except nod my rubber neck and say "Good idea, let's do it." I never had an issue with her after that, it always got solved, the work always got done and my clueless DM? He had no idea how I pulled it off.

He never understood it. 

I'm a genius! (Yeah right)

-BigMike

BigMike's Rules for Good Operations
 Rule #1 "Never ever forget who or what you are dealing with."

 Rule #2 "Never ever provide the ammo for the gun to shoot you with"

 Rule #1 "CYA is not good enough, It has to be CYAA (Cover Your Ass Always)"

When you Absolutely Positively want to fire them

Sunday morning 06/14/2020 at around 5:00 a.m. or so give or take a minute or two

Hello there you sexy beast (Oh wait I was looking in the mirror),

I rarely if ever use my blog to beat up on a person or a company individually. I've made some exceptions to that over the years as I went after Obama pretty hard and have been known to call Trump a few choice names before I swore off politics in the blog. Also if anyone knows me very well at all you probably know I get pretty pissed off at Microsoft from time to time. Most of that is in the past, however, it is there and It does fly contrary to my first sentence that I rarely if ever use my blog to beat up on a person or a company individually. Usually, that's because I do not want to embarrass anyone individually and I really don't think that writing something while I am still pretty heated about the subject is ever very fair and I think that my emotions will just color everything I have to say.

I'm gonna make a big fat huge hairy ass exception to that concept today. Today I want to write about a company that if I could excise it's existence from my life and never deal with them again, I surely would. I am so sick of their lies and their bullshit that If it were possible to actually continue some of my favorite companies for their products without having it delivered by FED-EX, then I absolutely, positively would. With a quickness, if it were possible to fire their asses and also still use some of the places I shop I would have already done so. For example, I love Chewy.com for their products, their prices, and their convenience and the people who work there. They are nice and professional and they actually care about solving your problems if you have one with an order you have placed. Then they ship it to you with Fed-Ex and the buggery begins. Jesus H. Katie Christ on a crutch these people have to be the absolute worst or the dumbest delivery drivers I have ever seen. It's either that or maybe they put so much pressure on them to cut corners and beat them up so badly about how long it takes to complete their routes or put so much work on each individual driver that it is impossible for them to do it in the time allotted that they hurry so much that mistakes are inevitable. I'm not sure which pointless excuse works, but they have used all of them, I don't think it matters anymore.

These people suck and just don't get it. I know if I am waiting on a delivery from a company and they ship with Fed-Ex that I need to be prepared for two things. One is I will more than likely have to go hunting for the packages because they could be laying anywhere on my property and Two, you better hurry because there is a better than even chance that your package is sitting out in the weather just waiting in the rain to start or the mud to soak through. I'm not exaggerating and not even joking not even a little bit.

Here's a crushed box laying on its side that was ordered from Chewy.com. It's probably dog food however do you notice where the end of the box is laying? That's right, in the mud. This particular day it had rained the night before and when you tried to pick the box up, it busted open because the bottom was soaking wet. It turns out the dog food was fine because it is a watertight bag, but that is not the issue. I am not sure the driver knew that. Also, the delivery address in THEIR APP says "Deliver front door", not deliver to mud at bottom of stairs. This just makes me nuts.

In the past year, I have had deliveries from them left out in the rain, left in the mud, left on top of my car in an open-air dirt floor carport, hidden behind a car, left at the bottom of the stairs and get this, in the middle of the sidewalk. No Kidding. I'm not joking, I came home from the grocery store with my wife one day and found this.

This is a roll-away bed we ordered, it weighs under 100 pounds in total, Actually, I'm pretty sure that the chewy box and it weighed about the same, but that is not the point. Why is this the proper way to deliver something to a customer's house? I have had electronics delivered to the carport and once when I had to have a replacement HOPPER delivered from DISH, the delivery driver thought it would be a good idea to lay it on the trunk of my car in the carport, in the rain. What a great idea.

If I had a company and I wanted a delivery company to represent me, I would choose the people who would throw my shit off the back of the truck at top speed while they were driving by my house, laughing and honking all the way!

Beep, beep, beep, your shit is here, come and get it, TOSS!

  This is no way to run a railroad. I'm lying about that last part but hey, comedy has to be expressed where you find it, right? Dear Dish, this is what they think of your Hoppers!

For the record, the trunk is actually sitting in the open air as I was working on the car at the time and had it parked at the very edge of the carport at the time. Does that even matter? What is the defense or justification for this?

I mean come on man! The trunk of a car, the middle of a sidewalk, sitting on the ground in the mud, for what reason? When it absolutely, positively has to be ruined before 10 a.m. the next morning? I mean I have found packages on the right-hand side of this car, on the ground hidden from view. This isn't about hiding stuff from porch pirates either, my driveway is 300 feet long and this is about 30 feet from the house. This car is literally 15 feet from the edge of the house, and the sidewalk is literally 15 feet from the front bumper of the car, no kidding. How much time do they save by doing stupid crap like this?

It got so bad I finally went out to my building workshop and created a sign, mounted it to the side of the carport that said: "No Delivery here".  I also went and downloaded their app, created a delivery account, and added a line to my address that said in the Address2 line "Deliver Front Door", also put that as part of the delivery instructions. I also noted the account as an address that had a disabled person, asking for delivery compliance as they requested. I have called their home delivery division and complained, I have complained on twitter and on Facebook to my page and to theirs attempting to resolve this peacefully. I have called and did a lot of these same things with shippers such as Chewy that I know use these idiots as their delivery service.

NOTHING HELPS, NOTHING HELPS, NOTHING HELPS.

So maybe just maybe putting them "On Blast" as the children say may help who knows. Maybe someone will see this cry for help and chew somebody's ass and make them do their job. Maybe pigs will fly outta my butt too.

Today they delivered the two wheelchair batteries I ordered from monsterscooterparts.com. Guess where they left the 65 pounds each box of one battery each that were as heavy and just about as big as an automobile battery? Do you think it was at the front door?  HELL NO! They left them on the last step of the six stairs, just out in the weather waiting just to get rained on, literally 2 feet away from the handicapped wheelchair ramp.

I'm ready to just give up and ask every company that I deal with if they use Fed-Ex as their delivery service and if they do, I am ready to cancel the order and find somebody else. If I had it in my power to order from whomever I liked and also at the same time exclude Fed-Ex from ever setting foot on my property ever again, I would fire those bastards with a quickness. I'm sick of this crap.

It's embarrassing as hell to have to ask your wife to come and get the delivery because it is on the steps you almost cannot navigate.

Why can't I just tell my shippers I don't want to use
Fed-Ex without paying $79 to ship something! 

1. An Atlanta Police Officer has been fired by the dumbass Mayor of Atlanta for shooting a suspect and killing him last night. The man grabbed an Officer's taser gun, ran, turned, and pointed it at another officer as if to fire it, and the officer who got fired for killing the man, shit him three times (or so). The Chief of Police thought the shooting was justified, The GBI investigated and in a preliminary statement said they thought it was justified, and the female black Mayor thought it was not and called the man a killer and fired him over the objection of the Chief. She told the Chief of Police to fire the Officer and he said No. The Chief resigned as a result. Protestors reacted by burning the Wendy's where it happened. So now ever if a fleeing felon turns and starts to fire an Unknown weapon at you, the only support you will get is from your wife, because everyone else deserts you and blames you for the idiot's actions and then the politicians make sure that you get fired.
   
   Tell me again why you would want to be a cop right now?
   
   
2. The economy is bad right now. Everyone knows that, no secret there. But what you may not realize is the real economic impact of the Covid-19 closures and etc hasn't hit yet. Just you wait until August of this year.
   
   In about August, all of the forbearance measures begin to run out. Evictions become legal again, Student loans become due again, The 6-month break from Mortgage relief comes active again, the 6 months extension of Unemployment payments start to run out, then what?
   
   Six weeks into the future is going to be an absolute economic mess the likes of which we have never seen really, because as bad as it has been already, what is coming is going to be even worse because what has kept us afloat so far, like the stimulus checks, is going to run out and you are on your own once again.  And notice I have said nothing about a CoronaVirus resurgence either.
   
   
3. Former FBI Chief William Sessions has died at the age of 90, succumbing to natural causes.
   
   
4. You can buy an Amazon echo dot for 1$ right now.
   
   
5. The human remains found in Idaho have been positively identified as the children of Lori Vallow that everybody has been looking for, They were found on land belonging to Chad Daybell, who had married her.
   
   
   Both of these bastards should be taken out at sunrise and shot.
   Worthless pieces of shit.
   
   BigMike 

Bean Crock

What in the hell am I doing? It is 5 a.m. on 06/06/2020 and I am wide awake writing a blog.
There's gotta be a better way to spend a Saturday morning. I used to be so hard to wake up.

Well anyway the time is here and I am here and this thing is open, so let's get to it, shall we?

I saw a video of Piers Morgan interviewing Rudy Guilliani yesterday.

But Before I get into that just let me say two things. 1) I try to as much as possible to stay above the fray, and nonpolitical in the blog posts I write now because no one wants to read a bunch of drivel about what I think about whatever politician I'm blathering on about, I mean boo-hoo, get over it, whatever. and 2) I, as a general rule, don't care for Piers Morgan because he is a stupid ass who doesn't do his homework, doesn't actually understand America, and I believe that he is only broadcasting here for the money in the first place. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with doing it for the money, but he is so blatant about his disdain for life here, in everything he does, I don't know why he keeps producing shows for US consumption.

Anyway....

There was this video of him attempting to do an interview with Rudy. Now whatever you think of Rudy I'm good with whatever you think. You think he is a hero, ok. You think he is an idiot, I'm ok with that too, You can think whatever you want to and I do not have an objection. This interview however made me laugh out loud and I tried to remain objective and see it through to the end without judgment and just couldn't. Rudy got pissed off when Piers told him he had gone "barking mad" and was quite deranged and his reaction was not only classic Rudy, It was an instant must save to the playlist of meme makers worldwide I'm sure. Check it out right here --> Rudy is Barking Mad
To me it was hysterical and the interview could have been conducted by the Fairy Godmother and it still would have been hysterical. Rudy got incensed and told Piers he "Effed up" only he said the real word, you could see his face got red and Morgan got under his skin when he told him he was deranged. The best part of Rudy's response was right after this exchange “When I used to interview you, you were an intelligent reasonable man and you’ve gone completely mad and you sound deranged,” Morgan said. “You’re abusive and it’s really sad to see what’s happened to you.”

Rudy went off the rails. It's funny as hell. My sides hurt from laughing at these two idiots.

Enough of that. Whew! To change the subject entirely...

You know some of the best memories I have about my chosen profession have nothing to do with the companies I worked for or the products they sold. It had nothing to do with the uniforms we had to wear or the hours they made us work. It had everything however to do with the people that I worked around. I can remember virtually nothing about specific days or shifts but have a ton of memories centered around some of the best folks to ever strap on a name badge. I wonder if that is weird?

I do not want to call anybody out, but the stories I could tell about the people and the laughs I had with them were just classic stuff. We did a lot of off the wall activities that only meant something to us and the customers around us probably never had a clue there was ever anything going on. One of my bosses for example, used to have a thing about having a daily goal and making sure that all the crew members knew what the daily goal was, so we invented ways to make sure everybody knew the daily goal and the real daily goal. Instead of fighting with him about something we all thought was overkill and calling him something like Gung-ho Food Burger boy behind his back, we would just figure a way to do as he requested and thumb our collective nose at him at the same time. Talk about a team icebreaker! What fun. Sometime I'll tell you all about "Hey Dick!"

If the daily goal was, for example, to have a low drive-thru time I would communicate it to everyone by either announcing it or writing it down somewhere or putting is on the assignments sheet (the line up). That was the daily goal we had written down just in case anyone ever asked us if the crew knew the goal. In this manner we were communicating the daily goal, he was happy, we did what we always did, which was to kick ass and throw food out as fast as humanly possible, and then the real goal was somewhere hidden that only we knew about. Sometimes, for example, I would take the label maker and put something on the back of my name tag (yes I had to wear a flipping name tag just like everybody else), so that if you flipped it up on the pin, there was a statement on the back of it that said the real goal. Sometimes the statement was comical and sometimes it was something semi-vulgar written in our language code only we knew. Sorta like STFU is today. Everybody knows what it means but none of the actual words are spelled out so as to not get into trouble for saying it out loud in front of customers. Stated Goal "Food Cost", secret goal "GTFAB" (Go the f**k away Boss). That was a blast. We used to do stuff just to break the day up and make it not boring.

In the restaurants, I managed I used to make it a game for myself to hire and manage some of the most talented people you could find. It wasn't easy but one of the things I did best was taking a bunch of strong and independent personalities and teach them to work together as a team and then challenge them to beat the crap out of whatever the company goals were. I used to go to these manager meetings where other managers would say stuff like "How did you get your A.C.E. (Average Customer Expenditure) to be so high? You are so high above us you must be cheating." I can't tell you how many times I got audited by the company looking for how we were doing it. The QA evaluators got sick of coming to my store doing ticket audits and watching servers. I used to laugh my ass off as I was giving these long and windy big ass-BULLSHIT answers to their questions about training and repetition and expectations and so on and so forth and I would never tell them how it was done. See the secret was to let the servers in on a little secret of their own. Servers are entirely motivated by money, well that and getting off early after making a lot of money.

People tipped based on the size of their check. Whatever the check was in total, even back then, most folks would either have a standard tip, like 50 cents for coffee or at minimum $1 for even a small purchase, or they would tip a percentage, like say 10%, 15% or 20% of their check. Assuming the food was good (and it was) and it was served fast (it was) then the service would dictate the amount of the check. I put all my effort into teaching serving as a science about how to suck money out of customers' wallets. It wasn't exactly following the stated rules of the company but it wasn't against them either. That was my specialty, finding the holes in the rules and exploiting them to our advantage.

For example, the rules about serving at the famous burger place I worked for, said suggestive selling was a technique used to compliment a customer's stated intention or purpose as they identified what food they wanted. They would order a sandwich and a drink, we were supposed to offer them side orders to compliment their purchase. Simple huh? I just changed the assumption about their intention. In the drive-thru, we never ever asked that ridiculous question concerning size for example. If a customer said they wanted a soft drink, they received a large drink unless they said specifically they wanted a different size. Same thing with french fries. You ordered Fries and you received a Large unless you said specifically you wanted a different size. You ordered a sandwich and didn't specify the dressings on the sandwich? We asked one time "with everything?" and if you said yes, by god you got everything, including anything and everything we charged extra for like bacon, cheese, etc. My standard direction to all of my folks was that if anyone ever complained you automatically refunded the cash difference between the product they said they wanted and the one they received, said you were sorry, and smiled and handed them a refund right away. No big deal. I got to keep the sale that was rung into the register, you maybe got 15 or 20 cents returned to you, you kept the large fry and everybody was happy. I didn't have a delete sale, I knew where the 20 cents short on the register went and I could care less. Every cashier had the authority to make customers happy if they complained. No big deal, nobody ever really was upset, and because they got to keep the larger product, and guess what they ordered the next time they came in? We won the sales contests they had almost every time they had one.

Even that got boring after a while.

One time they decided to have a "1/2 platter contest" using a special key they had set up called a "1/2 platter". The idea was to ring sales of platters on that month on the 1/2 platter key to track who could upsell the most baked beans side orders. They had it figured out so that it was the same as the menu price stated so customers didn't care how it appeared on the check. We won that contest hands down and running away with it every week. The entire length of the contest we kicked everybody's ass in 1/2 platter sales and all it took was an assumption on my part that my customers loved the baked beans. I just had my lead server (or Service Trainer cannot remember what we called them back then), teach everyone a technique called "bean assumption". Someone would say "I would like a Cheeseburger" for example and we would say "What would you like to go with your Baked Beans", the customer would respond with a product most of the time or at least a very high percentage of the time, we would ring it up, they would get sandwich, 2 side orders (one of which just so happened to be my lowest food cost side item), and everybody is happy. Anyone who complained got the same refund treatment, we never deleted or corrected a higher sale and everyone went home with more money in their pocket every day. I had some of the best-paid servers in the business and didn't care that they made more than I made, they worked hard, let them have the money. They were happy, they came to work, the days flew by and guess who got a nice fat bonus check at the end of the quarter for the lowest food cost and etc? Tell me how I cheated anyone?

Hell, the hardest part was trying to explain to my boss why I needed an extra 12-15 cases (about 72-90 each of #10 size cans) of Baked Beans sitting in the middle of my backroom floor because they would not go on the racks or why when they were busy planning this contest I spent a couple of hundred dollars on bean pots and training dishwashers how to clean them without smashing them. For the record, I told him that his other GMs were going to be calling me to borrow them anyway and I wanted to be ready and for some reason, that worked. He knew his other managers would not be ready and to him, I was planning to help him. That actually happened so it all worked out.

None of it ever would have worked without Jackie though.
Thankx Jack!

1. The L.A.P.D. police union has called the mayor of LA Eric Garcetti "unstable" and in need of counseling after he made comments the other day seemingly calling the police department a bunch of "killers" and after he made a statement saying he was going to cut $150 million dollars from the budget of the L.A.P.D. The annual budget of the department is 1.189 Billion dollars and has more than 10,000 sworn officers.
   
   
2. Hulk Hogan has been banned from the AEW wrestling promotion the other day after it was also confirmed that his ex-wife Linda was also banned for making some remark on twitter that was seemingly racist. I'm sure it's just a promotional thing because hell, Hulk isn't really wrestling anymore so there isn't really anything to ban. Last I heard he wasn't looking to join them anyway. Go figure a twit made a bad twitter remark. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a crap either way.
   
   
3. Russia has spilled 21,000 TONS of diesel fuel causing a 135 square mile oil spill. How many gallons are 21,000 TONS of fuel anyhow? Ask Alexa she probably knows.
   
   6,000 Tons of fuel was spilled on the ground after the permafrost melted and collapsed the tank, and another 15,000 Tons of fuel leaked into the Ambarnaya and Daldykan rivers and virtually all of their tributaries. Tons is a weird way to describe it though huh?
   
   
4. Ooops!! The unemployment numbers released for May were wrong although they really don't know exactly by how much. They apparently had a misclassification error or some such explanation. Sadly the numbers were worse, not better, and the unemployment level is still high as all get out, over 16% oopsie!
   
   
5. Peyton Manning has said that he came up with the word "Omaha", that he used to say so much while under center because it was the name of his stuffed Giraffe he had as a child. Apparently, he still has it.
   
   Whaddayaknowaboutthat?
   BigMike

Number 11 report to the window

April 25, 2020 at around 6:30 in the hour before sunrise

Good Morning Hungover participants in last night's celebration,

In March of 1974, I started to work at a drive in restaurant called Steak `n Shake. The restaurant it was then is very different than the one it was before the pandemic, however the longer the pandemic goes on, the more it is starting to look like the concept it was back in those "good old days". I started working there part time and I thought at the time, temporarily , until such time I could get the job I really wanted which was to be a career machinist. That dream got crushed because of a little thing called a recession.

The Recession of the 1970's - Click Here

I began my career there as a curb boy. That's what we were called, we were curb boys or curb girls, and there was no need and no atmosphere that dictated a PC name. Generically, both sexes were called "Curb Operators". Besides, men didn't wear the SKORT and didn't wear the white blouse or checkered vest so it was easy to tell us apart. We never wore roller skates and the girls never wore mini-dresses , however we did begin each shift with a cumberbund around our waist, a pouch to carry our curb cards and $3 in the store's money to make change with. We were human adding machines and were expected to know the product prices, to be able to figure out the bill total and the taxes due before we took your order to the curb window and handed it in for processing. There were no drive thru windows back then. There was no self service anything and unless they had to go to the bathroom, they never had to get out of the car.

There were certain expectations that came with the job. You had to be able to run, you had to learn to run with a full curb delivery tray full of drinks and / or food from the window to the car and back, and you had to be able to hang the tray on the car window in one motion without spilling anything (unless somebody's angry girlfriend paid you to dump chili on their jerk boyfriend's lap). Every person got a glass of water when I first started, however that sorta disappeared from the policy after a short while. A car would usually back into a parking space, they would flip their lights on (that's how you knew they wanted to eat in their cars), Someone like me would run out to their car, pull a number card , place it under the windshield wiper , you would approach the driver window, take the order , turn and  stand at the drivers side front bumper and list the prices, add the ticket, tax the total and then run to the window and hand it in. At this point they would turn their lights off , and anything they needed to know was on the back of the curb card. You ran like Forrest Gump  to do everything except sweeping the parking lot and taking out the trash. You also ran to answer the microphone at the window because sometimes they had no clue what your order ticket said. Curb 80-80 all cars !!

In addition to being the exterior servers, we got all the crappy jobs too, like cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning up the vomit and spilled milkshakes and such. The inside of the store had about 12 -16 tables , with the majority of those being 4 seat tables and there were usually about 6-8 counter stools. The curb lot when I started had about 60 parking spots in the front lot and when It was super busy on Friday and Saturday night, the back lot opened up and there was about 40 more. I hated working the back lot because it was inevitably full of teenagers, drinking beer and never tipping worth a crap. It was also 100 yards away and was a shit ton of running. Back then I could run all night and then run around with the girls all night after work (wink , wink). It was fun to be 16 and young back then. Come to think of it I don't remember knowing any old curb operators. They got fat as they got older and got moved inside to the line eventually.

Now looking at what is going on and how the concepts are changing (for better or worse I really don't know) I am starting to the signs of contraction within not only this concept but in a lot of them. Playgrounds are going away, everything is being promoted as contactless, certain chains are labeling parking spaces as for call ahead parking pickup, Dining rooms in certain QSR restaurants are being closed and in some cases, removed, atriums are being remodeled and in some cases the whole building footprint is being reconfigured to eliminate the option of interior dining. Pizza hut has changed a lot of their stores to this model. The one in my town is pick up and delivery only and they moved locations to accomplish that. Of course they don't deliver to my house, but Ahh, the good old days. Slopping stuff into your lap because there is no table. Sorry Sonic we don't want to pay for a butt load of red buttons and graphics and ordering speakers. Don't you have our app?

The more things change the more they stay the same

1. 53 year old Mike Tyson is reportedly in training for some sort of comeback. One story says its for charity matches, promotional stuff and another says his trainer thinks if you gave him 6 solid weeks of a training camp he could basically kick anybody's ass. I am not in favor of this because the last thing we need is Mike Tyson slobber knocking Donte Wilder all over the place. The next thing you know, Anthony Joshua would be seeing stars looking straight up at the ceiling and he would be wondering what the hell happened.
   
   I don't care if he was 90 years old, there is no freaking way I would get in the ring with that man. Not only is he one of the best boxers of all time, he also walks a very thin line of being pissed off at a moments notice. NO way I want this guy pissed at me. I don't for a minute think he is serious about real competition, as he hasn't boxed since 2005 professionally, however even if it was just for show, just for charity, just for a good cause, would you want to take the chance he would forget for a second, do that little left hand to the body, side step , left hand uppercut thing he was so famous for? I think he would still knock the smell outta your gym shorts. There's no way. This guy wanted to box a gorilla one time, something ain't right.
   
2. Shia LeBeouf has got to be one of the most bat-shit actors on the planet. Some of the crap he pulls, the movies he has made and the public spectacles he has participated in are just beyond anything you could consider normal. I think he and Joaquin Phoenix might be somehow related. They both seem to have the same goofy as hell gene.
   
   Remember the "Professional Friend" concept from yesterday? Here would be the perfect applications for this concept. He's been cited and arrested a few times for stupid behavior for things such as causing a ruckus for no reason and refusing to leave (I think at a Walgreens)  , smoking in a public place on purpose (wanted to be cited?), he got into several accidents (one that crushed his hand), got into a fight in Sherman Oaks CA, he made a short film and was accused of plagiarizing parts of it, after he was called out for that he then posted a plagiarized copied apology from yahoo answers with no explanation, he walks out of interviews promoting his movies, he walked the Red Carpet with a Paper Bag on his head that said "I am not famous anymore" in magic marker on the exterior, he did a 6 day performance art thing where he cried and said "I am sorry" over and over  at visitors and an exhausting list of others. Tell me this idiot could not have benefitted from somebody holding his reigns and saying "No Dumbass we ain't doing that".
   
3. Just a blurb, One of my all time favorite shows? "How it's Made" , I don't know why but I could watch that show for hours, goofy as that sounds.
   
4. It strikes me that Odell Beckham Jr, as talented as he is on the football field, needs to grow the hell up and stop crying and bitching about every little thing. We should probably stop excusing his behavior too. I'm just saying. His twitter rant about the draft was just crazy. PF candidate.
   
5. A man was arrested yesterday in Acworth GA, at his storage unit, with 1400 ounces of the psychedelic drug DMT  (Dimethyltryptamine), that is about 88 pounds of this shit. Along with the drugs they discovered he had the manufacturing process and the ingredients to make buttloads more , along with Lye, Vinegar, Root Bark and all the tools and equipment one would need to be a DMT drug kingpin.
   
   He said it was all for his own personal use.
   
   
   See you after tripping balls for 35 years you guys,
   
   BigMike

Getting stuff done

02/23/2018

We have all faced a time in our lives where we needed to get a lot of stuff done. Everyone has felt the pressure of accomplishment. It's inevitable that at some point we all figure out that we either have to come up with a plan or something will have to change. Hopefully you figure that out before your boss decides the thing that has to change is you.

Here is one system I've used over the years to get stuff done. Feel free to steal it, change it, make it your own.

Just get better everyday and we'll call it even.

We went to a Carmike Cinema theatre last night

My wife and I went to see the movie "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" last night. Loved the movie. I wonder however if things continue the way they have been how long you'll be able to go to a movie at a theatre in the future however. After I thought about it I sent the following novel/letter to Carmike Cinemas. They can read it or not. You can read it or not.

I just think they and their competition should do something different if they want to survive for the next ten years. If they continue operations the same way , I fear that movie theatres will soon go the way of drive In movies and 8 track tape players.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/
I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.
Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888.
We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!

Open letter to Carmike Cinemas :

Mr. Gary Krannacker, VP Operations
Carmike Cinemas, Inc.
Carmike Plaza
1301 First Avenue
Columbus, Georgia 31901
Telephone: (706)576-3400

Dear Mr. Krannacker,

According to what I could find, you are in charge of Operations at Carmike. I would like to relay some observations to you about our continuing experience in your theatres with one caveat. The reason I am writing you is to be certain that Carmike understands the impact in a general sense, of what we experience when visiting your theaters. I have no underlying agenda, other than an improved experience and I am not interested in compensation, contact, coupons, or movie passes. I’m not looking for a job or trying to convince you to let me see movies free. My motives here are about being able to go to your theaters, to be served in a reasonable time and be able to see a movie in pleasant surroundings. My wife and I attend screening at several of your locations on a regular basis. We travel to Dalton GA, Cartersville GA and occasionally see movies in our hometown of Calhoun Ga. I’ve also lived in four other states and have attended screenings in your theaters all over the country. We also enjoy your competition. In general, it is an enjoyable experience, or at least sometimes, it is, if I can ignore everything else.

Look, I know you are in a very competitive business. I’ve read all about how the public doesn’t go to the movies anymore and all the reason the experts give for that decline. I get it that the industry has changed. There is more competition now than ever before, that there are more sources for entertainment now than ever before and it is cut into smaller and smaller pieces by new processes every day, and that every day a new challenge comes up that wasn’t part of the competitive landscape 5 years ago.

I would counter all of that with one statement.
“So what! Are you just going to quit being a movie company?”

Silly statement I know and the answer is of course not. Without regard to your measurement metrics, cash margin statistics and RPP (revenue per patron) analysis, I say you have unlimited room for the potential to grow, to achieve unheard of year over year results and the potential to lead the market, instead of being in the middle of the pack of the so-called “Big Four”. Things got to change if that is ever to happen though.

Some of what I see is nothing more than basic business and it all seems like a no-brainer to me. Others are big ideas that take capital investment and radical thinking to combat the natural business tendency to manage the business from the profit line upwards. I’ll not lecture you about your own business, however on the next pages I would like to share some thoughts. Feel free to do with them whatever you like including ignoring them or shredding them. It is possible that I am completely wrong and this letter has no value whatsoever, but, then again, who knows?

As I said, I am a customer, one of your customers who have been going to movies on a regular basis for a long time. This letter may read like a complaint, however really it is a desperate plea to save your industry from itself.

I am afraid what I see is going to result in the managing of this business through a decline and into a crash landing, metrics be damned. If it were an airliner, the result is called “Controlled Flight into Terrain”, where the pilot is behind the yoke, flying the plane and flew it straight into the mountain anyway. I mean no disrespect, however it looks like to me that no one is flying this plane.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely Yours,

bigmike - (Actual letter is in the mail.)

How do you manage this business? From the Top Line down (revenues) or bottom line up (Profit)?

Everywhere I look in one of your facilities, I see expense (cut) decisions. Typically, those decisions are all about profit generation and budgetary expense control. I have no issue with that (Maximizing profit), if everything is already running right, the ship is tight and it is what it takes to return a fair profit to your shareholder.

What is the message you are sending to your patrons, associates and management however when: Marquees are damaged, floors are dirty, Sound systems don’t work properly, carpets are worn out, trim is missing, uniforms are dirty, the staff is slovenly, signage and lights are out, parking lot lights never get turned on, bathrooms are always filthy and it looks like the last time any paint was applied was when Ronald Reagan was president?
I’ll tell you what it says to me. It says, “We are Cheap, even if our items are not”. It also says you invest no money in inspecting your facilities and ensuring a high standard is met.

The mission ought to be how to get more people to come back more often. Instead, the mission is perceived as “Don’t spend any money on the theatres”. Tangible expense control is very important, however if you also do not demonstrate to me , your patron, that intangible Guest Good will is as important , I’ll stay home and watch Netflix on my big screen TV, with my home theatre system playing while my wife makes popcorn. You give me no reason to remember you as a destination, otherwise. You are leaving piles of money on the table by ignoring this important asset. If it looks like you value profit over me, I’ll see it and act accordingly. See the mountain in the way here?

How much you charge me for a ticket or on what day the special runs is only important the first time. After that, you have to execute and your staff has to perform. Even if you charge me $1.50 per ticket and I buy nothing else, how many times do you think I’ll come back when it takes 20-30 minutes to get them? Buy two drinks and one bag of popcorn and stand in line for 30 minutes? Really?

Force every purchase through the concession stand, including tickets, make us wait forever, force a parent to try to buy tickets, buy concessions, control 2 toddlers who are bored and screaming and ask yourself if this is the law of unintended consequences at work? Is this the way you want to to be? How many times will this aggravated mother of two, who could finally afford to take her kids to the movies because the prices dropped to $1.50, bother to come back after she is annoyed beyond consideration because the method of doing business changed? Should there be a sign that says, “Low staffing in place” or “The ticket seller called in sick”, on the front door? Do you think the ticket price will actually matter on any future purchase decision?

Realize that your business is really all about people and is not the movies, the concessions or expenses. Nobody and I mean nobody cares if anyone in your theatres is wearing a jacket. It may be part of your look, your ethos, how you distinguish management from associates or whatever but it doesn’t mean anything if that person in the jacket never says a word to a patron. It really has no value at all either when the jacket is stained with butter and soda either. I’d rather see clean T-Shirts than stained jackets.

No one talks to you and guess what? No one smiles either. I have literally stood in line with my wife for 20 minutes paying attention dozens of times, watched her order while I just stood there, and never saw anyone talk to a patron, ask a question, or smile one time. Your staff typically never talks to its customers anymore. They are more interested in filling the cup than in saying hello. The only things I ever hear are related to pricing, stocking and task orientation. Efficiency is good, watching five people do the Thorazine shuffle is not. Heads down, popcorn bins filled, cups brought up yes, but literally no guest interaction, beyond size and price conversations. It certainly isn’t a staffing problem. You’ve replaced the staff many times and Lord knows they change often enough. I’d say it might be a training problem or a selection problem, but not staffing. If this is how you intend it to be, just admit it, cut out the intermediary, and encourage patrons to bring their own snacks while buying their tickets through fandango, so you will never have to interact with them at all. Then, you could have a scanner at the theatre door let us in with our on line ticket bar code and cut the labor expense entirely.

Is the trend towards Self Serve theatres?

How long before your internal discussions begin to be about closing locations, if that hasn’t already begun?

If the trend is that movie Theatre’s are a dying breed, are you just waiting around for the end to come? I’m no operations or marketing genius. I don’t have all the answers. Hell for all I know I am completely wrong and I have no idea about this. It seems to me however, that if you struggle to fill theatres and attract more guests and the competition is stupid fierce, that you have to do things a bit differently in order to achieve desired results. Stimulus Tuesday is a good Idea. $1.50 Tickets are a great idea. It won’t bring me back a second time however to experience ice age service, with a bad sound system to a place ran by sullen no talking staff, to wait on pre-popped popcorn, in long lines , outside the front door surrounded by aggravated people in the wintertime.

Are you kidding?

The atmosphere in your facilities is depressing. I noticed when you started using a digital projection scheme. It is better picture quality and makes for a better movie. My opinion is the same for the upgraded sound systems. Great Idea. The problem is I didn’t notice either one of these things until I had to endure the soup lines from the great depression to get to them.

Here what it feels like sometimes:

You get out of your car in a parking lot at night that is not well marked, and are trapped in a lane that has no exit. There are no parking lot lights burning, so you couldn’t see that. You feel isolated and alone. After you figure out how to park your car, you walk up to the front doors (in the mall units this is where it starts), you then notice that the ticket booth is closed and they are selling tickets and concessions at the same time. You wait outside in line, in the cold, with a group of aggravated parents who are getting more and more agitated by the minute. Finally, the line moves a little and you open the doors to go inside and smell …nothing. The sounds you hear are crowd buzz, teen agers making noise talking to each other, mechanical background sounds like doors, people handling items, and the noise associated with a number of aggravated people standing around. No one talks to you, No one smiles at you, and no Music is in the air, there is no atmosphere. You wait. You shuffle forward. While waiting you may go to the bathroom, if there is one to use and it smells terrible. No one has looked at it in a while and there is a mess all around the sink and floors. When you finally make it up to the concession stand, that is selling the same items they’ve always sold since 1942, you are hurried though your purchase by a harried under manned staff whose interest seems to be to get you to go away, and the sooner the better. You have your hands full and you go to find your theatre. No one is taking tickets, no one is directing traffic, and still no one is talking to you. You find your theatre, open the door and find you seat. The screen starts to play coming attractions and now I notice you have a digital projector.

It feels like I had to walk through the swamp, to get to the junkyard in order to get into the museum in order to finally see the Mona Lisa. I’d bet a blind person would not be able to guess they were standing in line in a movie theater. I’ll bet you spent a literal TON of money on the projector and the sound upgrades. Then you hid them under the pile of construction debris and rocks before I found them.

None of this has anything at all to do with community support, unless you also consider that I’ll not let my teenaged daughter go to your theatre at night with her friends because the parking lot is a dark and potentially dangerous place. How safe do you think it is to see 20 kids gathered around the back of the building in the dark and what do you think they are doing? Yeah, I’d say not burning the parking lot lights is a brilliant strategy.

This feels like the mountain is coming and boy I am glad I’m not on the plane.

If you always do what you always did, then you always get what you always got.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of Insanity is to do the same things repeatedly while expecting a different result. Thomas Edison said that he never failed in his quest to make a working incandescent lamp; he just found ten thousand ways not to make one. Babe Ruth struck out more times than anyone else. The point is that it looks like innovation is needed. Off the top of my head, I can think of several things that make sense to me; however, I’m no movie theatre genius.

Maybe it makes perfect sense to you to sell pre-popped cold popcorn in the name of efficiency. Instead of pre-popping the popcorn or buying, it pre-popped and storing it in the back room, I would have added more popcorn machines and put the smell of fresh popcorn in the air. Every person in line would see and smell popcorn being made. If three machines couldn’t keep up, I’d install three more. Cook less popcorn, but cook it more often. Make it part of the draw. I would never let a guest see me bringing popcorn up to the bin using a broken and cracked plastic tub with a dirty bottom.

You just lowered the value of the product by doing so and now I feel ripped off.

America loves Brand Names. We are land full of Brand name enthusiasts. Beyond Coca Cola, what brand names do you sell? You couldn’t prove it by me until I get to the counter to buy it and by that time, it just doesn’t matter. Looked at a Nascar race car lately ?

Why do you waste all that space around the front doors? Three old video games and one bench seat surrounded by dingy carpet is not appealing. Everything surrounding the entrance should be pristine, inviting and part of your marketing. Why cannot I buy trash and trinkets (shirts, cups, movie themed items etc) at a Carmike theatre, ala Cracker barrel? The ambience is part of the marketing. Staff uniforms are part of the marketing, the smell and the sound is part of the marketing. Alternatively, it should be anyway.

The job of marketing is to get me into your theatre one time, the first time. Operationally you have to execute to get me to come back. If I had to guess, I’d say that Stimulus Tuesday, $1.50 Tickets and other marketing ideas are all about the future of your company. You are trying to combat the rising competition, draw more patrons and get more people into movies and make more money. If you are, and I have read this correctly, then consider how it is executed as part of the plan and budget for it accordingly.

1. If you throw a bunch of money (reduced ticket prices for example) at the problem and then ask a slow motion reduced staff to execute it, how successful do you think it will be?
2. All you will have done is throw a bunch of money at the problem and you should have just set it on fire in the parking lot. Mission accomplished.

Radical serious innovation is needed.
1. Possibly some ideas centered on guest enjoyment, ambience, atmosphere, redesign and better service. It is possible that you need to think about how the product is delivered. It looks like the engine is blown on the car and you keep changing the carburetor in order to fix it. Try something new. These places should be cash cow casinos instead of piggy banks.
2. Get some pet projects to try in small markets, do some real satisfaction research. Find some different concessions, sell more products, put some music in the lobby just don’t do the same things repeatedly and expect it to be better magically, all on its own.
3. Maybe you need smaller theatres with more movies on smaller screens with a full service twist. Maybe you need to make a big fat hairy deal out of movie premiers with spotlights and exterior stimulus. Heck maybe you need to have flea markets in the parking lot when you’re not selling tickets, but doing the same thing and tweaking the ticket price is a recipe for failure if you do nothing else.
4. Is Chik-fil-A the only business in the world that understands that if you involve the community and support it that they will support you? When is the last time you seriously competed for local market and marketing share?

Lastly if the business has changed, then so must the business model. I sure don’t have the answers, but ..,.

If carpets wear out and are expensive to replace, then maybe you need a different floor surface, not a carpet cleaner. The point is it makes no sense to let the floor look like it is worn out. Replace it with tile or vinyl or plain concrete painted in movie themes, just don’t let it be painted with foot traffic, grease, gum and spilled soda. The entrance is a high traffic area and it needs to be designed with that in mind.

If five people cannot keep up with the lines behind one counter, then maybe you need three counters and six more popcorn machines. I question that a service standard even exists in your industry and there definitely should be one. How long will you wait for food to be delivered in a restaurant? If the standard at concession is to wait no more than 5 minutes to be served, then how long will I wait in line if I am 10 back in a line that takes 5 minutes per person? Even considering queuing it will take a lot more than 15 minutes won’t it? How does closing the ticket booth solve this problem?

If you cannot fill 500 seat rooms, then maybe you need smaller rooms and more theatres, centered on a different service model. Maybe you need to reconfigure them to be 50-100 seat rooms with full service, real food, beer sales, internet access, party rooms, or anything else that will utilize the space productively and profitably and fit within the movie theme. Maybe you need private rooms, box seats, video game rooms and tournaments, season tickets or something that adds to the draw and produces revenue. Maybe you need four pool tables, 20 video machines, a jukebox, Televisions or a place to watch sports. Leave everything the same except the ticket price and expect it to be different? I think every square foot should produce an enjoyable experience and revenue for your company.

Right now, it just seems like a high portion of the space just sits there gathering dust and it feels like we are waiting on you to finally close up shop and move on.

If you can only sell four dollars of add on concession purchases, possibly you need to sell more items, not less and certainly not the same items as everybody else. If I understand your metrics page on your investor’s web site, you are about the same as everyone else. Was that the goal and will that blow away the revenue projections? The goal is to be in the middle of the pack, to produce mediocrity and be like everybody else? Really?

If neon costs a ton to upkeep, then maybe you need to switch out to LED’s. If Parking lot lights are too expensive, then maybe the theater needs better lights on the building itself. If the Marquee is 25 years old, is it time to be replaced? Is there a new technology you could use instead? Lights and signs should work all the time. They should look great and should say, “Come on in”. When you allow them to be out, broke, dingy or out of date they say, “We don’t care if you come on in”. Everything in your physical plant should be looked at like this. It should be a big, fat, hairy deal for the surroundings to look worn out, and trust me; it is not currently looked at like that at all.

If placing ads in the newspaper doesn’t work as well as it used to then maybe you need direct mail or bigger full page 4 color ads, not just an elimination of the ad itself.

If the revenue stream from ticket purchases or concessions isn’t what you need it to be, maybe you need more streams of revenue instead of lower entrance fees. Maybe you need ten times the amount of products you have now and it is possible you don’t sell what I want either. Why can’t I get a hot dog at a theatre? Why is no food products sold at all? There are No chips, snacks, hot pretzels, taquitos, etc? Is it because you don’t want to pay to clean up the theatre? Is that a viable customer centered response?

Should there be three tiers of products for sale instead of one overpriced tier? Look at the convenience store industry. If they used your model, they would have one style of lighter and it would cost 5 bucks per lighter. They would sell ten lighters a day. Look at fast food, get a burger and it can be a single, double or a triple, etc. Instead of centering on various sizes of the same products, in over priced combos, maybe you need to think about how to sell more variety at different price points. I cannot imagine what you are doing is going to sustain your future, if nothing else changes.

When I go to the movies, I always have more money to spend than I actually spend. The reason I don’t spend more has nothing to with what you offer, it has everything to with what you don’t offer. We always spend that money after the fact, in another place of business and you don’t get a penny of it. I wonder why not?

I’m sure there is a lot more that can be said, however I’ve used up enough of your time already. Have a great day.

I sent this letter to Wal-Mart the other day....

I hate complaining, I really do, BUT... these clowns really make me annoyed.

Surprisingly enough , no response.

Go figure.

 

 

Dear Wal-Mart,

 

Stop being so customer unfriendly and get in your stores to see what the affect the polices you put into practice has on your customers, not to mention your employees.

 

Here are five good ones. I could not believe this, all in one night, again. I hate to gripe, however I can't believe you want it to be this way. If you don't, do something about it.

 

1. Cigarettes are only available in one line. OK. I get that. Then you made that line 15 items or less. Smooth moronic stupid move. Now if you want groceries and intend to buy cigarettes, you have to stand in your long, slow lines twice.  If you don't really want to sell cigarettes, get out of the business. If you do want to sell them, dedicate one line for that item only (or drinks, gum, or end caps stuff whatever or a kiosk). However, to purposefully piss people off, and then blame it on the government is insane and a chickens*** way to do business.

 

2. This is a supercenter. Act like it. You have what? 25 check out lanes? I've never seen more than 6-7 open. Ridiculous long lines always. Frustrated cashiers. Pissed off customers (including me). Put some of those folks who are walking around doing nothing to work helping customers get out of your stores. Open check out lanes on demand. Be flexible and customer friendly. Trust me, in this location, you are not. When every line snakes out into the aisles, open more registers. Cross train everybody to be service oriented. You need help here. They don't get it.

 

3. A box of discounted DVD's and Cheap DVD's is a good idea. Putting it into a 5 foot wide by 5-foot deep box is stupid. No one less than 5 foot five can get into it. How can you sell them if you can't reach them? How can we see what is in the bottom? How many do you think you didn't sell, CAUSE YOU CAN"T GET TO THEM? Geez!!

 

4. Have you ever heard of pagers? They were invented 25 years ago. Or walkie talkies? Or cell phones? Do away with the extremely loud and very annoying overhead microphone system! It is not `cache to not be able to hold a conversation with someone right next to you because the loud ass speakers over your head go off every two minutes. It really makes me see RED!

 

5. No cashier ever gets all the security tags turned off. I don't even bother stopping at the front door anymore when your official mechanical voice tells me to. Screw it. Train your people, get better technology, fix the problem, whatever it takes, cause I'll make you chase me to my car every time until you do.

 

 

 

 

 

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/  

 

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

 

How can I help you?

 

How can I help you? You ever hear these words in a restaurant or C-Store? You walk up to the counter or you sit down in the restaurant or call someplace and the first thing they say to you is "....How can I help you?" Then, in the flash of an eye, you get put on hold or interrupted or told "I don't handle that". Next !

Wait a minute, did you want to help me or not? I haven't even finished explaining to you what it is I want yet and already you are yelling next ! Give a me the common courtesy of you undivided attention and try to figure out how to help me solve my friggin problem !

Why do people say things like this anyhow? It means no more than the usual "How are you?" greeting that you get from most folks when you first see them. If you answer this phrase as it is asked, they look at you like you just ran over their foot with their car. They don't really want to know, they just want to hear you say fine. Irks me to no end. You don't want to know , don't ask.

Here's another one. There are about 300 million people in the USA (estimate). Most of those people are born here, educated here, work here, vacation here, retire here and die here. Almost all of them speak English (in varying degrees). Yet, when you call some place, the automated menu says "To continue in English, press one". Like I need to know what language to speak in , in my own country?

I am not insensitive to non-English speakers. Whenever I can I try to learn conversational phrases in the language of the area in order to be able to communicate in the language of the people around me, or I take somebody who can translate for me. Why on gods earth then do I need the phone company to ask me if I want to continue in English?

Assume I want English, I live in America, ask If I want to communicate in another language. "To continue in Espanola, press dos". Seems pretty ignorant to ask the high 99 % majority of the people who call if they want to communicate in the predominate language in the country you are in. If I was in Japan, I wouldn't expect for the voice prompt to say, to continue in Japanese, press one, I would expect the message to be in Japanese, because I am in JAPAN !!! - duh!

You ask me , we have went too far to the left in our cultural sensitivity.

Oh I'm sorry, you don't speak English or you are deaf, don't worry, I'll talk louder !

Here is another stupid decision, where we are busy trying to be all things to all people and never to risk offending anyone with our products, goods or services.

I'll bet almost everyone in America has used a drive thru ATM. Most people have used them more than the inside of the bank. I am sure there is a segment in America who has never used anything but an ATM. The access to the keypad is designed so that you can use it from your car. The drivers side of the car is usually the side you transact your business from.

If all of that is true, then why pray tell are there Braille indicators on the keypads at a drive thru ATM? Who is ever going to use that particular function anyhow? Is this designed for the legally blind yet totally functional driver who will occasionally need to go to the ATM late one night who does not want to get out of the car because the seeing eye dog is afraid of the dark?

What the heck is this all about anyhow?

How did we become such a society of idiots anyhow?

 

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/  

 

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

 

Send this on to your favorite company or place where you get piss-poor service

 

If you read my rant about restaurants the other day, you know that it really yanks my crank to get poor service, in a place where really the only thing different they have to offer is service. Read between the lines, because this applies to a lot of businesses and not just restaurants. Here's my take on it and a why I think most company's (like restaurants) don't get it and spend their money promoting their brand in exactly all the wrong places and treat selection and training just like they do pricing the food. Its pretty basic.

 

• The food is not really the reason we come to a restaurant (for example) to begin with. It might be why we come the first time or two , but once you have tasted a Big Mac, you know what it tastes like and it probably is not the reason we went back and bought another one or a tenth one. We went back to your restaurant the fourth or fifth time because we like how we were treated by your employees. It either wasn't bad or it was great. You have a 50-50 chance of seeing me again if it wasn't bad and probably an 100 % chance of seeing me again if it was great. You have a zero percent chance ( 0% ) of seeing me again anytime soon if your people should be cleaning gutters instead of waiting tables.
• Everybody has burgers. Everybody has French fries, Everybody sells drinks. Yours, while made to your specifications in your extremely special way, is not really all that different than anybody else's. A burger is a burger is a burger is a burger. Taste may dictate the purchase and it may be that you like Big Macs over Whoppers for example, but if you get treated like a nobody where they make the one you like, chances are you will not go there as often. Treat me like I don't count and I won't come back. I'll eat my second choice ten times before I'll come back where I might like the food better but you hire morons,  so you make it easy for me, I go somewhere else where they don't.
• Cute Uniforms and goofy accessories you make your employees wear really has no affect on where I spend my money or how many times I visit you. I can't remember the last time I decided to go visit a place again because the employee I interacted with was wearing a certain color shirt, some button with a cute saying on it or some goofy ball cap with your latest promotional saying on it. I came back over and over again because the employee inside the uniform wearing your button treated me like I meant something. They were polite. They said please. The called me sir (or learned my name and used it). When I said Thank you, they said you're welcome. They were prompt. There hands were clean. They didn't interrupt me while a conversation was taking place at the table. You either have to hire that characteristic in your folks or you may find it in people who will need your help to develop it by being trained extensively. The point is if you hire a rude moronic ding dong to wait on me, they will cost you more in the long run than it would have to spend the money to hire the right person and spend months to train them in the first place. Hiring the wrong person makes as much sense as lighting your gas appliances with hundred dollar bills.
• Past visits dictate future business. Where we eat has nothing to do really with how cute your latest building is or your latest marketing slogan. You are wasting money thinking I will come into your business just because you put a red stripe on top of it or add neon signs to a window. My wife and I are probably just like a lot of people. We eat out a lot. 1-10 times a month , more or less. The conversation goes something like this. "Hey honey, you want to go out to eat?". "Sure", she says. "Where do you want to go", I say? "I don't know where do you want to go?", She says. Then we start naming restaurants. "Want to go to  (Insert Name)?" The very next thing said will determine whether or not I go to your establishment and I guarantee you it has nothing at all to do with TV commercials, Billboards, Logos, uniform or cutesy reader board signs. I'll say "How about (Insert name) and she'll say " Remember the last time we were there?".  At this exact moment in time, your future business depends upon her answer. If the last time I was there, your service sucked, we will go somewhere else. Period. All the money you put into everything else may as well have been burned in a pagan ceremony in front of your corporate headquarters extolling your stupidity. It probably also will make me think twice about visiting your other locations.

 

Every business that depends upon repeat customers would do well to read this article. My repeat customer business and my continuing loyalty has nothing at all to do with how much you spend on Marketing.

My advice is this. If you run a customer dependant business , remember the customer as you create your budgets. Then while you are determining how to spend the money you have allocated, quit viewing the training of your staff including the staff selection process as a line item cost. When you do that you will actively encourage your front line managers to figure out ways to reduce their costs in order to make the profit statements look better. Instead, make sure they spend the money on the selection process to get the right people and on the training process to encourage them to treat me right when I make the decision to show up at your front door. Put all your efforts into making sure my wife says your service doesn't suck and you won't need more billboards or cuter buttons.

 

Lets start a revolution back to good service . Send this on to your favorite company or place where you get piss-poor service

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at (click here) http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/  

 

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

 

Check out my business at http://answrtek.com