Enjoying the Experience

There's a topic that is somewhat hard for me to express to others in an understandable way. It's more of a concept than a topic, something that probably takes one of those "eureka" moments to suddenly "get," like understanding derivatives in math and physics or why DC Comics doesn't hold a candle 90% of the time to Marvel or Dark Horse comics. Except sometimes Batman.

Anyway, it's the idea of the feeling the end user gets from your product or service. Whether it's the experience you get from eating at Red Lobster or how a user feels about your wonderful computer application, too often the customer's...or user's...opinions are dismissed because the proprietor feels they are ignorant and ill-informed.

Many times we are. Can't dispute that.

I've never run a restaurant. I read about it. I've considered it. And as you already know I've been obsessed with various cooking shows and such...I'm probably better informed than the average person about certain aspects of what it takes to run a restaurant, but I have never been under the gun and managed a kitchen or cafeteria like some family and friends have.

Does this mean that my opinion is invalid if I loved or hated a dining experience but lack the refined palate of a chef or the management skills of a head cook or kitchen manager?

If my money is flowing into your pocket, no. My opinion does matter. If my opinion is flowing from my big mouth to my relatives' and friends' ears, my opinion sure as heck matters.

What difficulties you run into managing inventory and inspections and training your cooks and fighting waitstaff turnover isn't my problem. My experience matters. And it matters to your bottom line, Mister Restaurant Owner (and to your waitstaff's tips, too, although some studies find that there is contrary behavior to expectation in this regard).

So the view from the outside is very much what your goal, as a proprietor of any service business or vendor of a product, should be to deliver the best experience possible to the consumer without the consumer having to care about how much trouble you go through to deliver it. You work hard so I don't have to think about it.

Why am I bringing this up?

There is a reason, believe it or not. That reason ties loosely to another post I'll make tomorrow. But there's a bigger reason and that is that it offers perhaps a different perspective to you, whether you're a consumer or a person who delivers a product or service to others.

I've had to ride a few school buses in my time both as a student and as a person who has had to share the road with them. I've never driven one before, though. Nor have I worked with a company that works as a subcontractor for the task. But I can say that the personality of buses flows from the driver; how tolerant they are of certain behaviors, how much time I had to sit there, how clean or filthy he kept his bus and my impressions from how the bus was maintained. As a driver on the road with them I utterly despise having to stop what seems like every 20 feet at each driveway for kids when I was used to having to walk or ride to a bus stop so we all congregated like sheep to wait for the bus en mass. And the blinking blue light...AGH! I've almost run into a bus because I've become transfixed by that flashing monstrosity on top of the bus. But despite those negatives there are some drivers who try to go out of their way...and alleviate my misgivings for these negative associations...by doing some simple things like pulling over at the first opportunity to let pent-up drivers congested behind the bus pass and continue on to work. Others do not. So not all bus drivers create equal experiences. Can you kind of see what I mean?

Or take my unwillingness to go to Burger King. Our local BK seemed to screw up our order at least three out of five times. Even simple things like giving me a diet soda was a challenge for their employees. Once these negative biases were rooted in my psyche I began seeing (and thus reinforcing) other issues...their employees at our local restaurant seemed disinterested in their jobs, not caring so much about serving the customer. They sported more tatoos and piercings than average. The uniforms were rarely unstained from grease, let alone nicely presented or tucked in; they looked like they were at the counter fresh from a backyard wrestling match. This made me doubt even more in the quality of their products...or the sanitation of their cooking and dining areas...so I simply declared that given the choice I'm not going there anymore.

Our local McDonald's was different. They get orders mixed up once in awhile but not enough that I have come to expect my order messed up when I go. Sometimes there's a wait...but not much of one. The guy that handles the general maintenance and gruntwork around the store sports a tattoo or three, but he's never short of a friendly wave and a greeting for my son as we go in or drive by. I know the managers have a few small tattoos as well, but usually they're covered up or discrete. I see them cleaning around the store. I leave with a good feeling from the experience, one that a customer is supposed to have when leaving a service establishment. And it's a shame because BK has a menu with things I used to be more interested in. The quality (granted, quality of food itself isn't a strength for most fast food chains) of the experience is usually pretty good. My daughter works there so I get a little of the background on some issues, but not much...she's a teenager. She's lucky to pay attention to anything that doesn't directly affect her. But that's aside from the point...the point is that I know some of the things that go on there and I know they're not perfect and I readily acknowledge that. But the experience overall is a good one.

I hope some of the concept is communicated from this posting. There are things that can be improved dramatically by keeping in mind the experience you want to deliver to your customer or end user but you have to have that mindset in order to have success with it. You have to try to put yourself in the place of your "customer" be it an actual customer to your business, a customer using your product, or even students riding your bus and ask yourself how they're going to feel after experiencing what you have to offer, how you're going to influence their day in some way and how they're going to associate different feelings with your product (or service). Too often too many people lose sight of this or even lose sight of the fact that even if they feel like they're a cog in a bigger faceless machine it only takes one broken tooth on that cog to make things not run correctly...you affect other people and have a place in the business.

I know, it sounds like smoke up your butt. But it is true.

Your superiors have the responsibility up the chain to remember this idea in managing you. You have the responsibility to pass it on down the chain to coworkers and subordinates. I've found this to be a huge factor in how certain buildings, businesses and institutions aquire certain "personalities", by taking a lead from their top manager or boss. The attitude is passed on down the chain, and thus affects end-user experience.

Tune in for another part to this to see how this post hopefully loosely ties with the followup.