I recently stumbled across the Blog titled Working as Designed, by Joseph Hewitt, an American living in Australia. One of Joseph's threads, a rant on Fast Food & Cashiers, inspired me to write the following. Originally this was going to be a simple comment on his Blog, but I get carried away sometimes and a simple comment turned into a post of my own :)
With me being an Aussie living in the U.S., Joseph's experiences and mine are almost mirror images of each other. In Joseph's case he has trouble placing his Fast Food order because his Cashier keeps cutting him off and trying to finalize his sale, in my case I have a Cashier who keeps wanting to add to my order.
Having a background in Retail I can tell you that corporate-retail in the U.S. is all about the Up-Sell, whereas retail in Australia wasn't so big on it (at least 15 years ago it wasn't). My Aussie manager was a real laid back guy, whereas my U.S. managers would always push the Up-Sell. It wasn't enough to point the customer in the direction of the requested item, you had to accompany them to the shelves, find the item for them and put it in their hand THEN recommend something else based on what they're now looking at. Good Lord, man! At least tell them about this week's Sale Items!
When working the registers we were told to always recommend Add-On items from the counter. Giftcards, Bookmarks, gadgets designed for slicing open the plastic wrap on CDs. It didn't matter what you pushed, all that mattered was trying to sell the customer something extra.
The Fast Food sector in the U.S. is the same, hence the very well-known (and often mocked) phrase, "Would you like Fries with that?"
Would you like a desert today? Apple Pie? Sundae? Coffee? Shake? Can I somehow convince you to spend more money here today?
My local Jack in the Box sells Gift Cards. Gift Cards! For Fast Food! Incredible!
But do you know what is the sneakiest Up-Sell of them all? When you order a Combo Meal, and the Cashier asks if you want the Medium or Large size.
What do you reply?
"Medium is fine."
What did they just do to you? Quickly now!
That's right. They just increased your order from the Small Combo Meal to the Medium-sized Combo meal. They Up-Sold you a higher priced meal! Oh yes, they did!
My local Jack has the Medium prices on their Drive-Thru board, but my local Carl's Jr? They have the Small Combo price listed, or they have a sign in the window that advertizes a Super Star Combo for $2.99, but when you go in and order a Super Star Combo what happens? They ask if you want Medium or Large. There's no mention of Small, being the $2.99 price. You say Medium, they ask for $4.33, you hand over $5, get your change & your meal and go to your table unaware that you just fell for the stealthiest Up-Sell of them all, and what could possibly be considered a Bait & Switch tactic.
Next time you go to your local Fast Food establishment and order a Combo Meal, when they ask if you want a Regular/Medium or Large sized combo, say, "Small, thanks."
You don't need to eat all those Fries anyway. Lord knows I don't. Waaaay too much sodium. You'll pay for it later.
When they ask if you want Curly Fries tell them "No thanks, and actually...hold the Fries."
"Excuse me, sir? But the Combo Meal comes with Fries. You don't want them?"
"No, no I don't. And don't worry about the drink, either."
"You don't want the Fries or the drink? You...don't want the Combo then?"
"No, no I don't. I'll just have the sandwich, thanks."
"Um...ok. Would you...like a dessert then? Maybe an Apple Pie? Or a coffee?"
"No, it's ok. In fact, don't worry about the sandwich either. I've got some bread & meat at home, I can make myself a sandwich. I think I've got some beer, too, so thanks anyway. See ya later...or not."
Ok, so I'm kidding about that last part, but unless you're really keen to supersize yourself, the next time your Fast Food Cashier asks if you want a Medium or Large Combo, ask for Small.
You'll save yourself some money, some calories, and maybe even some heartache of the most serious kind a few years down the road.
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12 comments:
lol, nice.
I've worked in retail and fast food (many years ago), and I was fired from Burger king for refusing to upsell. Main reason being.... I find it incredibly annoying.
When I go to a store or resturaunt, I know what I want, and if I don't, I ask. The last thing I want is a situation from the movie "Dude wheres my car" where the person at the drive thru window refuses to let me end my order without adding something else. It's like watching someone beg their gf for another date when they are clearly finished. Kinda pathetic.
When I was in retail, I never upsold, and just like in fast food, my manager got pissed until I told him to keep track of my sales totals, and if I didn't score in the top 2 every month (we had 10 sales employees) I would voluntarily quit rather than soak up unemployment via getting fired. I scored in the top 2 for 10 months and then quit thanks to a better job from.... a customer I met who admired my honest, low pressure approach to sales.
I believe that part of the reason why upselling is so important in america is because the boss man thinks he is the man and everyone else is just wasting company time if they aren't constantly annoying the shit out of the customers. What bosses need to realize is that when people are looking for a product or service, the salesman should be intelligent enough to gather enough info to meet the customers needs. If they can't perform that task, no amount of upselling is going to work because the customer knows the salesperson is full of shit.
I'm still in sales (non-commissioned based ftw), and I still consistantly outsell my co-workers without upselling. I have a long ledger of repeat customers who know me by name and who respect my ability to help them get the job done at an affordable price. Johnny T can upsell his life away, but at the end of the day, it's all about repeat customers. And real business owners understand and respect that.
ARRRGGG! Just lost everything I typed. Why do I keep typing in this window instead of MS:Word like I used to? I think I got lazy once Firefox built in a spell checker which was the 2nd reason I used to write in Word and then copy/paste for posting. The 1st reason being so I wouldn't lose what I typed. Yet look at me I'm complaining about it and STILL typing away in this little window!
Sigh...
Anyway, you mixed me and Bughunter up. It's my blog, Joseph, not Bughunter's. I'm the American living in Australia. You got the link right, just not the name.
Bughunter used to comment a lot on my blog, actually for awhile there he was my only commenter. I know my friend's and family were reading because they would bring things up in emails or phone conversation, but bughunter, who I don't know, have never met and lives in Salt Lake City, was my only commenter. I miss him. I think I'll go post on his blog which is here: http://ptsoft.blogspot.com/
Oh and the counter for the number of times we've gotten the word verification wrong was something we both used to do on our posts.
Verification Failures: 0
Hi Joseph. Thanks for the clarification. I was sure when I clicked Bughunter's name that it took me to your blog, but I probably did something wrong somewhere myself. I'll edit my post and blog roll so I'm not referring to you as Bughunter, and I'll check out his Blog. It's probably one I'll find interesting to read, too :)
Joseph, BugHunter's Blog is familiar to me! I've been there before and probably found yours through his...unless you post on Tobold's Blog as well.
That Word Verification thingy, I have a theory that if you type up a long comment the Word Verification Word actually changes on you, so even though you type the WV Word correctly, it's no longer the correct WV Word. I had a simple 4 or 5 letter word once, big, block letters, impossible to type the wrong word...and yet I somehow failed the WV check. The only way it could have happened was if the WV Word got changed on me.
Okay so commenting on the fast food thing. There is a Doogie Howser, M.D. episode (1989-1993 tv series about a teenage genius who is a doctor staring Neil Patrick Harris) which deals with him having an argument with his friend about which is harder, his job at the hospital or his friend's fast food job. So Doogie agrees to work a day at the fast food place. His boss tells him about how to push french fries. So they have a montage of him taking people's order, him trying to get them to order fries, and them refusing.
...would you like fries with that?
...what size fries would you like with that?
...will you be having any fries with that?
etc.
The last guy blows up and starts yelling about how he doesn't want any fries. He yells enough that the manager comes over to ask what is going on.
"I just wanted to get a jumbo burger and a large coke and this kid keeps trying to tack other things onto my order." etc. etc.
"Well here sir let me handle this." says the boss taking over at the register. "you wanted a jumbo burger..."
"and a large coke."
typing on the register "...and a large coke. Would you like fries with that?"
"Ummm yeah sure."
Hmmm, is probably much funnier having seen it.
It really made my morning to learn about this mix up involving me and The Fourth (That's Joseph, for those keeping track on the home game edition).
I have a Quiznos near my work that I go to quite frequently. Instead of just throwing all of the ingredients for my sandwich into the middle of the bread, they spread them evenly. We have worked together to come up with new and better sandwiches. They always ask if I'd like "chips and a drink", this may be thought of as an up-sell, but often they don't charge me for my drink. The other day I ordered 3 specially invented sandwiches to go. While walking out the door they handed me a cup, so that I could have a drink on the road.
That is why they have a repeat customer. It's why when I go out to eat for lunch, there is a real good chance I'm going to "my" Quiznos.
failures: 1 (but it was my fault for missing a closing tag on my link.)
You know you guys and your talk of Jack in the Box, Carl's Jr. and Quiznos. Why don't you just rub my face it? Go ahead and start talking about Taco Bell and Wienerschnitzel! You're KILLING ME!
Sigh.
Word Verification Mistakes: 0
Starbucks is even sneakier. They have their main sizes on display for you: tall, grande, and venti. But there's a "small" as well. But if you order a "small" coffee, they'll ask you "a tall?" and you generally think that the tall is the smallest size they have so you order that.
I thought small is kids' drink at Starbucks?
I thought Starbucks' 'small' was also the child's size, which is what we get for JE when we get him a hot chocolate.
Joseph, while it may not be 'fast food', many of the Aussie Fish & Chip shops make a pretty good hamburger, cheeseburger, hamburger w/ bacon, etc, but the Fish & Chips. Oh, the Fish & Chips! That's worth the trip alone! You'll probably have to shop around to find the best one in your neighborhood, but when they're done right it's hard to beat a piece of Flake or Whiting, a couple of Fried Dim Sims, and golden brown, crispy Chips.
Starbucks has their kid's size, but they also have a smaller adult drink size.
It's called a short
Interesting, and according to that article the 'short' version is the better tasting drink of their drinks because it's made with almost the 'correct' amount of milk or hot water.
And it's cheaper :)
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