First The Good News

This morning. Fayetteville, GA.  McDonald's.

I went to McDonald's this morning.  The young African American lady who handed me my Egg McMuffin looked me straight in the eye, and said in the most genuine manner, "Thank you.  Have a good morning.  Come back and see us."  If I could have fallen out of my car seat I would have.  It may have been the nicest customer service greeting I've ever received.  She meant exactly what she said and it wasn't a script and it wasn't mumbled at me.  Good for her and good for McDonald's.  I will now satisfy my daily small Coke addiction by patronizing that McDonald's. 

Comments

[Olivier Blanchard]

I've noticed genuine warmth from people in the customer service industry lately. It's still the exception rather than the rule, but I am running into more and more good experiences like this one.

[Chris McMahon]

I don't think the fact that the woman was black has anything to do with your story.

Pointing it out leads me to the conclusion that you think that a black woman could provide good customer service is the news, as opposed to someone at McDonald's providing good customer service.

[Vivian Mosley]

In response to Olivia Blanchard; funny, I picked up on the fact that great customer service was provided. The fact that it happened to be an african american woman who provided the service is, I believe, not the point of conveying this information. In this instance I think small details were provided to enable us to envision the experience of customer service provided at a McDonalds drive through window. Sometimes good customer service is just good customer service, no matter what package it comes in, or how the message is conveyed.

[Katherine Stone]

Actually the African American part was simply description -- I was hoping you could envision her warm face looking out at me. The young part, however, was on purpose, as I find it is less likely that a very young service employee gives a crap about customers.

[McChronicles]

So good to hear your story. Thanks for sharing it.

Individual people (especially on the front line) have a ton of power. Managers would do well to inspire these people to continually share their positive vibes.

[Glenn Friesen]

So many trips through Drive Thru's. So many bad experiences with the people manning them -- from receiving 50+ pickle slices on a burger with "extra pickles" to being told I wouldn't be given ketchup packets because they didn't give those to drive-thru customers!

It's great to hear your story -- and helps me remember the good customer service experiences I did receive -- usually a sincere + mutually respectful conversation, and receiving what I purchased.

Several low-wage front-line people I used to know in the fast food industry candidly told me (independently of each other) that "minimum wage + minimum respect = minimum effort". I'm glad that mantra seems to be going away, 'cos it leads to nothing but dissatisfaction all the way around.