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November 02, 2006

Secret Recipe and the thank you in the end of a visit

I went to Secret Recipe for lunch, but this case is not necessarily related to Secret Recipe alone, I believe. Lunch was great, the waiters and waitresses were friendly.

Leaving the premises, my colleague and I passed by 4 of them, at various positions. One behind the counter, one just at the door, one standing besides the tables and one was outside.

Interestingly, they all said the same thing: "Thank you and please come again." So far so good. It makes you feel good - but then, it is so artificial, isn't it?

All saying the same things means to me that they have been well trained in being friendly, to the last word. And that, to me, makes the friedliness artificial.

I saw it once at the casheer in Kinokuniya. The supervisor actually whispered to the new trainee, when to greet the next customer.

To me, it is not natural, it is friendliness too artificial, too trained, not spontaneous. Trying to be friendly, so to speak. This is just me, of course. This is the effort of companies to engage, and entice customers, to differentiate their service and to secure a customer's loyalty. To build rapport with the customer. And surely, there is nothing wrong with this, and I prefer a friendly smile over a grumpy face, 100 times!!!

I will go to Secret Recipe again, and will continue to shop at other shops that greet me friendly, or not. If someone trains the "service attendants", give them more flexibility. More variety in greetings. There is more that can be said, taught or trained. Not just one sentence. To put it very harshly, this is putting employees into a very tight box, and may be even assumes that they need to be trained to be friendly, otherwise they won't.

What do you say?











Posted by Andreas at November 2, 2006 03:36 PM

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