By the time you read this, we’ll have finally arrived home from an almost six week long work / play trip. What that really means is that I worked as we travelled and she played. Ok, I played a little bit too. The beauty of having a business that isn’t tied to a single physical location is that you can do the work from anywhere. BUT… that isn’t today’s topic. I think I’ve harped on the value of remote work enough, at least for now.
This was a long road trip. We saw long “lost” relatives we hadn’t seen in 20 years, had a little bit of beach time, spent time with family and college friends, as well as knocking off a few things on our “gotta do this” list. One of the constants of a road trip – particularly one that takes consists of a lot of time in the high desert plains and mountains – is thirst quenching. There’s a certain drive through place we visit that has a happy hour twice a day – half off or very cheap drinks (no, not THOSE kind). These places are (almost) everywhere along our trip’s path, so we managed to visit quite a few of them.
At almost every one of these places, we found that we had ordering problems. An unbelievable frequency of them, in fact.
The problem is not the problem
At first, we thought it was my accent. I don’t have one, according to me. Ok, I really don’t have one and I have had enough trouble with this at drive ups that I tend to be that guy who enunciates every word slowly so that even Siri could understand it.
Didn’t help. When you’ve had this issue in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and a few other states whose people talk far differently accent-wise, you start to get the idea that it isn’t you.
The same data and experiences that help you figure out that it isn’t you also help you figure out that it isn’t the person on the other end. That was the good news.
Eventually, we started asking questions. Yes, I know. Who does that?
The real issue?
At first, it really wasn’t clear what was creating this issue at so many locations. While I was still thinking it might somehow be me or engine noise, the problem was consistent in too many places, even with the engine off. Plus we were driving a Subaru, not a diesel pickup.
What was clear was that employees of this franchise system were having massive problems all over the West, Midwest, and as far east as the Florida panhandle.
After talking to a few employees at different locations (after we had trouble ordering at each of them), we found out that they were having terrible struggles with their point of sale ordering system. It wasn’t clear if it was new, poorly designed, unclear, and/or if an awful lot of people hadn’t been getting trained well, or all of those things.
It eventually became clear that the more experienced employees were doing ok with the system (think: Morning visits usually staffed by a manager), while afternoon visits were the source of the struggle. It finally seemed to come down to newer employees who may have recently started for the summer. They would be less familiar with the menu and the point of sale system, as well as the challenges of voice ordering.
In one case, the flustered person trying to take a two drink order finally called over their manager, who cleared up the point of sale issue almost immediately. The manager was very apologetic to us, but I don’t think we deserved an apology. I think the employee who perhaps hadn’t been trained enough or mentored enough was the one who should have received the apology (and some additional training).
The point? Test, train, repeat.
We encountered similar things at other businesses during our trip.
If you implement point of sale, tech support or order management systems in your business – whether you own/run a restaurant or a heavy manufacturing business, find a local fast food joint that has deployed do-it-yourself ordering kiosks.
Every manager (including senior ones) will benefit from watching the general public as they use these systems. Having done that… watch newly trained employees do the same with your systems. Only then will you know if your training is working.
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