Good To See

I’ve mentioned from time to time that bad management practice offends me on a professional level – and I’ll admit that bad business practices in general make me wince. Goodness knows, I’m no all-knowing oracle in matters of business, and even if I do make it to the top of my new profession, I will never pretend to have all of the answers once my dissertation defense is over with. But there are some things so obvious, so completely elemental, that any average six-year-old child would be able to explain to you why these practices are wrong – and I have on occasion recommended to people that they go find an ordinary six-year-old and ask him or her that exact question. People who have been reading these rants for a while now will recall that I also like to take note of people who are doing something the right way, and another one of those times happened last week…

A group of us were having lunch at one of the small restaurants adjacent to campus on Grand River Avenue, when a very large group of customers started piling in through the door and queuing up in the ordering line. It’s one of those places where you order your lunch at the counter, pay for it at the register, and then they bring it out to your table when it’s ready. Because this place features real food – prepared to order, with the hot food being cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven – there can be a bit of a delay before you get your order, but we still go there because the food is so much better than anything you can get by hollering into a clown’s head. And after all, a short wait time isn’t everything. Unless, of course, 30 or 40 conference participants have just come piling through your door and the line to order is now extending all the way across the (rather long) room…

It’s the off-season in East Lansing – the majority of the students are gone for the summer, and the town is about half of the size it is during the school year – which makes it unusual for parties of 30+ to show up in a restaurant. These folks were all wearing the same style of temporary name badge either on lanyards or pinned to their clothing, however; clearly participants in some conference or meeting somewhere nearby that had not included lunch in their budget (or agenda). With the line now well over 30 people deep, and the staff needing a minute or two to process each person through the line (and a few more to make each meal), things were looking grim. Apparently the manager on duty thought so, too, because a few minutes later I noticed one of the restaurant staff walking up the line with a Buffalo-chicken pizza, right out of their oven, offering small samples to anyone in line who wanted one.

I turned to one of the other people in our party. “Good idea,” I remarked. “That should keep people from getting quite as irritated by the wait.”

He nodded. “It should also make them hungrier,” he agreed. “When they get to the front of the line they’ll be in the mood for a nice, savory pizza instead of a little salad or a bite of pasta.”

I’ll admit I hadn’t thought of that angle, but not surprisingly, the Professor was right. The people in line were settling down, looking and sounding happier, and when they got to the front of the line several of them did purchase large meals (like the personal pizzas) – although it must be conceded that we don’t know what these customers were going to purchase in the first place. Still, if that one pizza’s worth of customer relations gesture kept even a few people from the conference group from giving up and going elsewhere to forage for lunch (which it obviously did; I don’t think I saw a single one of those folks leave) then it was an excellent example of both business development and public relations at virtually no cost at all…

It’s nice to see people who are actually getting it right, and not just because it improves the odds that they will get YOUR order right, as well. Maybe we’ll go back there again this week…