There is Always a Line… for Great Service

• Post By: Greg Crumpton
• Date: May 23, 2018
• Category: Blog
• Tags: commitment, Customer Sevice, Excellence, greg crumpton, Mission Critical, success, teamwork

There is always a line. That is what I kept seeing and saying to myself every time I drove by the Park Road Shopping Center in Charlotte, NC. Turns out that Shake Shack has just opened a new store there and people are clamoring to get in.

On most Saturdays, like many folks, I have a honey-do list. Dog food to buy, cleaners, hardware store, etc., all that stuff that just needs to be done yet the weekdays don’t seem to allow time for. Yesterday was no different. Rise and shine, morning routine complete, off I go. It’s 11:00 AM or so. As I start my route to get all the errands knocked out, I ride by the shopping center and there is that line… again.

I continue about my to do list and then head back to my side of town. Now it’s about 2:00 PM.

Guess what?
The line is still there.

But this time I am hungry. My gut says, “feed me”, but my brain says, “we will not wait in line for a hamburger”.

I go across the road to SmashBurger. In my mind it’s close, no line and it’s a burger. Confession: I don’t eat many burgers, but I do like a turkey burger and chicken sammy pretty well though. I am visiting this establishment for the third time, the first two were totally underwhelming. Besides, Shake Shack wasn’t in the neighborhood yet, therefore, in my mind I am testing to see if Smash has picked up it’s game. Leaving Smash, again totally underwhelmed, I realize they haven’t picked up their game and I probably just made my final visit. I repeat, NO LINE. I now know why.

OK, now my stomach has food in it and I am back to my self-appointed, customer service researcher role.

I slip into a parking spot a long way away from the Shack. I walk around front and count 28 people in line, and that is just outdoors waiting to even get into the place. On the side of the building there is a door that opens onto the patio, I slide in there and find a spot in the corner so that I can see the whole place. Inside there are another 20 or so folks in line waiting their for time to order.

From my vantage point, I see 19 people wearing Shack shirts and they are working. I don’t mean normal fast-food paced working, I mean really getting after it. I watch the flow through the line, the food runners, the table bussers, then I see this young lady walking around, Tom Peters style, MBWA. Managing By Walking/Wandering Around. I first learned of this term 20 years or so ago and liked it. Now, I use it in many different settings, I still find it suits my style.

Erika was just doing her thing, supporting many, but mostly ensuring her team had what they needed. She looked like a shepherd tending to her flock. It was really a cool spot to watch from, but I had to go and chat her up to find out more about her, this place and why people stand in line for it.

Thinking I needed something food related, she asked, as I approached, if she could help me. I said absolutely, but it didn’t have anything to do with eating or drinking but could I ask her a few questions about her job. She was super thrilled to explain to me their attitude towards serving, the quality of the ingredients, the family-centered environment, etc. It was nice to hear that she had been trained well, but the deeper pieces and her nuances are what mattered to me. She was without a doubt genuine when she said everything about the store, but she really expressed her desire to take care of people with her acts of serving, as I observed.

While we are talking, a lady walked up, and Erika needed to tend to her problem. The lady didn’t get cheese and the custard flavor was wrong, nothing you wouldn’t expect from a fast and furious pace in a burger joint. Erika then looked at me and said, “I’ll be back after this lady gets what she wants and is happy”. Not in a snippy way at all, but in a “dude, you gotta wait while I take care of my customer” sort of way. She returned once she delivered the goods to the lady and apologized for their error, and then we wrapped up our few minutes of chat and off I went. A great visit to be sure and a sense that these folks “get it”.

As I meandered around south Charlotte finishing up my errand list, I had some time to ponder my visits to the two burger joints earlier in the day.

One place, the Smashed place, says, “they are about serving customers”. They are accurate. They did serve me, and I was a customer. I ordered from a very vanilla person working the cash register, I heard two folks in the kitchen area talking and then I saw someone wearing the company’s attire sitting in a booth near me as I ate, diligently working some program on her phone. Texting, it sounded like, as I was lucky enough to hear each and every chime as the new messages arrived. I don’t think she ever saw me!

If you take time to look at their website, it talks a lot about them, their food options, their locations and even a dedicated landing page for the CEO. Blah, blah, blah is what I thought after spending a few minutes on it this morning as I prepared to write this piece. Now, I click over to the Shake Shack site, it delivers a totally different feeling. I spent about the same amount of time on both sites, maybe 12 – 15 minutes each, trying to be unbiased, and yet the feeling of “Serving the Customers”, not the generic “Customer Service” shined through from the Shake Shack site in a way it didn’t from the other site.

I am not selling hamburgers, I do not care where you eat, what I do care about is serving people and this just happened to be a real-life experience I drew a real-life lesson from. Here it is:

In this day and age of AI, IA, AR and all things data, people matter more now than ever before. Having a person-centric mindset will do us all good in all of our endeavors. Yes, even with all the robots, drones, IoT devices and all of the cool stuff that makes our world go ‘round, and as we move forward, more and more machines will be in play, don’t lose your people-first skills. The drive and desire to deliver knock out service will elevate you to and keep you at the top of any game you find yourself in. That I am sure of.

Until next time, stay rapt in your thoughts.