Prepping for problems

The days of responding to a business or personal crisis only as and when it occurs are gone. Sensible life-planning requires some sort of pro-active thinking and an anticipation of the steps that will be taken when the proverbial hits the fan. A classic example of a failure to plan for problems is the Woolworths coffee shop in the Gateway Centre in Durban . Here’s a mini case study from which we can all learn.

I was down in Durbs and we decided to have a quick breakfast in the Woolies Gateway coffee shop before heading home. We placed a simple order of two toasted English muffins with scrambled egg, smoked salmon and two lattes to be served with the breakfast itself.

OK, I didn’t time it, but I’ve certainly never waited anywhere near as along when ordering exactly the same items at the Woolworths coffee shop in Hyde Park Johannesburg, which is attended by polite, bright, really efficient young people. The Gateway staff spent more time chatting to passing friends and colleagues than they did attending to customers. No peripheral-vision, customer-noticing eye contact was in evidence. We had to wave each time you needed someone.

The food arrived after an inordinately long wait and instead of the smoked salmon being added to the scrambled egg, a few pieces appeared to have been flung, in desultory fashion, on top of the egg. We began munching away at the tasteless, unseasoned fare and awaited our lattes. And waited. Until I moved into aggro mode and added some volume to my vocal protest. Still chatting to colleagues, the young waitress squeezed too large a dollop of honey into my guest’s latte, rendering it undrinkable. I complained to the waitress about her tacky service (no apology forthcoming, but rather just an aggrieved glare) and called for the manager.

Said manager arrived way too many minutes later, sweat on brow, greasy-handed and began to explain that the service had fallen off the rails because two or three (clearly kitchen) staff hadn’t pitched. The manager was physically cooking the breakfasts. He apologised, we empathised and it immediately struck me that neither he nor the general management of the Woolies Gateway store could have thought through a ‘what if?’ scenario to handle just such a situation. Or if they had, it wasn’t being implemented.

Suggested Crisis Management 101: a) Close off part of the restaurant – trying to manage the whole shebang while kitchen staff-deprived is inviting trouble. b) Tell customers before you seat them: ‘We’re short-staffed today so service might take longer than usual, for which we apologise. Are you OK with that?’ Some people (like me) would opt to go elsewhere. Others with more time to spare might still be cool with it. c) Tell the remaining staff that they have to be extra vigilant to keep the potentially impatient customers happy. d) Use your discretion and give every customer their coffee, tea or latte free that day with the message that it’s in appreciation of their understanding and patience. Would they then be more understanding and come back again? You betcha! Would I go back there again? Only under duress.

It’s not just major corporates that need to plan for what they’d do when things go wrong. Something, at some stage, will go wrong in the tiniest enterprise or facet of a larger business. Do you know how you’d handle it? Have you walked your staff through the scenario? Do they know what their individual roles would be? And if not, why not? Don’t go hide in the kitchen if things go wrong. That’s not your place. Get out there and create a solution. Even if it means totally closing the coffee shop in preference to doing relationship damage.

Footnote: I asked the Woolies customer service team for their comments prior to publishing. They apologised for the experience, thanked me for taking the trouble and said the comments would be forwarded to Gateway management and used to prevent a recurrence. That’s more like the Woolies I know.

Related Tags: Customer service, Crisis management, Planning, Anticipation

Comments

[Roy Blumenthal]

Hiya Clive....

The timing of this post is 'universe-conspiracy'. I've just gotten home from doing some interactive theatre in Hillbrow.

I was going to spend a half an hour writing up my Woolworth's Campus Square, Melville experience.

So now, instead, I'll write it up in your comments section.

It's my second visit to this branch, and it's my last.

The first time was okay-ish. Long, long, long waits. And details of orders gotten wrong.

Friday's session was just plain awful. I ordered scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and two slices of seed loaf. And a decaff capuccino.

My instructions for the food are simple: 1) Scrambled eggs, very well done. No runny bits. 2) Bacon, extremely well done, VERY crispy, NO soft bits. 3) Toast, VERY well done.

Now in many establishments, the waiter will repeat the order to demonstrate that they've understood. In this case, blankness.

About twenty minutes in, my coffee arrived. I asked the standard, anxious, 'Are you sure this is decaff?' and got a surly stare for three seconds, and a curt, 'Ya.'

Another ten minutes later, my food arrived. The egg looked great. But the bacon was pasty and soft. The toast was hardly singed. And there was only one slice of it.

I sent it back, with the same instructions.

The food came back ten minutes later. Bacon ultra crispy, the way I like it. The toast was like a very thin biscuit. And the egg. Hmmmm. The egg... Ice cold. They hadn't even bothered to keep it warm.

I asked for some Worcestershire sauce. Five minutes later someone brought me some tomato sauce. 'I asked for Worcestershire sauce,' I said.

'We don't have any,' the waitress said, as ultra surly as my bacon was crisp second time round.

I said, 'This is a Woolworth's food store. Have you checked the shelves?'

The three-second glare. 'Someone's looking now.'

Twenty minutes later, I was finished. And noone came to offer me the elusive Worcestershire sauce.

But that's not ALL!

Normally, I tip 20%. In this case, I decided that I would tip 0%, with an explanation.

It took ten minutes to get my bill. When the bill arrived, she was very cheerful. For the first time all day. So I kinda thought, 'Ag, I don't need to be mingy. I'll give her 10%. Doesn't matter too much.'

So I marked the tip on the bill, gave her my credit card. Waited ten more minutes for it to come back. And found that she hadn't added the tip to the card.

And then I remembered... the last time I was here, the waiter told me that they don't put tips on the credit card. What the hell????

So hey... I'm not going to the Melville Woolworth's coffee-shop again soon.

Blue skies
love
Roy

[Clive Simpkins]

Hey Roy! I've immediately forwarded your comments to Woolies Customer Service and copied you by e-mail. Strikes me they need to be re-lookin' attitude among their coffee shop staff - and giving the blighters some social-skills training.

I'm also adding your comments to the http://www.moneyweb.co.za version of my same blog on the topic.

Woolies Hyde Park Shopping Centre coffee shop the kids are 'jes febuliss!' Warmest regards, Clive

[Clive Simpkins]

Roy - me again. Just remembered that the MNY version of the Woolies story will only be up on their site Monday 10th April. But I'll add your posting as soon as it is. Warmest, C

[Roy Blumenthal]

Hiya Clive...

I'll wager money that the problem stems from Woolies management, and not from the staff themselves.

The credit card tipping policy is the big clue here.

It indicates that management is not looking after their staff in this particular area: tips.

Most people who purchase at Woolies will be doing so with some form of electronic payment tool, be it a cheque card or a credit card.

If Woolies management PREVENTS their staff from receiving tips from these payment methods for WHATEVER reason, it means they're depriving their staff of those tips. Fullstop.

I'm willing to wager more money that there will be something like this response coming out of Woolies management: 'Our waiters are not employed the way normal coffee shops employ waiters. They're salaried employees, and the tips are really just 'over-and-above' what they get paid. Because they get a salary, tipping is NOT a priority, and we don't really believe they should be working for tips.'

How much do you wanna bet?

And the reason I'm putting it this strongly is that I'm reading between the lines and working out that Woolies coffee-shops are NOT coffee-shops in the minds of the Woolies head honchos. I'm reading that they're an extension of the store. They're a retail operation. Which means that they're operating on retail rules, not coffee-shop rules. Which means that the staff are not being treated the way they're used to being treated in the coffee-shop business.

I'm willing to be wrong on this. But I'll be surprised if I am.

Seeya Thursday.

Blue skies
love
Roy

[Rich...!]

Andrea, Cal and I got up and left when we visited the Woolies restuarant in The Design Quarter, basically because the service was non-existant. We wont bother going back

Woolies should either stick to their guns, or make sure the new stuff they get into doesn't negativley impact on my perceptions of the company as a whole...!

[Johannes De Beer]

Hi I went to Woolies Cafe in Woodlands Pretoria, Wow what a Difference to the wannabe plaice they call Campus Square.

I was there on the 10 Monday 2006 during their "harvest" time, a wonderful display of food was on show, and the chef who made the food also attended it. My wife and I dished up from the harvest table.

So far so good, no problems yet. So we took a seat and a waitress approached us with a menu and a smile and asked if we wanted a minute to look at the menu for drinks, she returned after we closed the menus and we ordered 2 lattes, she suggested we try the honey & nut latte, so my wife said she will have one, okay I waited +-5 min for my honey & nut Latte, but was worth the wait.

When I asked for the bill, the manager brought the bill to me and to my surprise he asked me if I enjoyed my meal and then asked my wife what she thought about the honey & nut latte, I was impressed that he knew what was going on in his cafe, because we were keeping an eye on him and he did the same to some of the other tables I asked him if we could tip on my credit card, and he said yes.

Overall I loved the experience and when I am in Pretoria again I will go there again.