Mash Morning Rant - The upsell

[Mash200]

Nothing drives me more insane than the upsell.

I get the theory behind the upsell and why the poor bastard spewing the upsell has to do it, but it drives me nuts non-the-less.

Example ? This morning I stopped at the 711 after dropping my kid off at the bus stop to grab a coffee. Don?t you judge, I wanted coffee and 711 was right there! I grabbed my coffee and went to the cashier to pay. ?That?ll be $2.06 please? he said politely. I pulled out my debit card to pay. Just before he keys in the total he stops and with such great enthusiasm and inflection that would suggest his next offer is something that would benefit me more than winning the lottery or meeting dear 8lb 6oz newborn sweet baby Jesus, he asks: ?Would you like a Hhhhotdog or taQqqquito with that?? SAYS WHAT!?! Sorry come again?!? Did this guy really just ask me that? I know, what?s the big surprise but seriously it?s 8:30 in the f*&king morning dude! Do you really think I want to start my day off eating a nasty ass greasy taquito and hotdog from 711 while slurping away on a coffee?!? ?Think man damnit think!? is all that went through my mind. I looked at this guy square in the eyes and I?m pretty sure the look on my face did all the talking but I did the civil thing and gave him an answer? ?No thanks? with a chuckle on the end.

I think the folks responsible for coming up with upsells for their staff should have to go to some sort of business common sense school.

Lesson 1 ? Only drunk ass bastards at 8 o?clock in the morning (who are actually far and few between in these parts) should be offered hotdogs and taquitos in the morning. Hell, maybe we can kick in an early myocardial infraction early with this approach and rid the world of one more air sucking drunk fat bastard. I?m all for that! The rest of us folks though? well shit man I just want my bowl of fibre oats or corn flakes. Maybe a skillet on a Saturday morning but definitely not a sorry excuse for a shriveled up wiener called a hotdog and a taquito. If I want to see a shriveled up wiener at that hour I?ll just go stand outside in the -20 temps naked and watch the show.

Does this shit even work? I mean my eyes did wander over to the house of reheated crap on the conveyor belt when he asked and the first thing I noticed is I must not be the only one thinking this. No one else is buying it either. Just stop asking. If someone wants to torture themselves they know where to come. 711 baby!

 

[2Tartu]

Shit, if only they offered hotdogs here, you need to ask and most of the time they tell you to piss off as it takes them effort to put em in the heater , whats a taquito though?

 

[Bob369963]

While I can imagine it was annoying at a 7-11, there is no denying that up-selling actually works.

 

[RainMotorsports]

While I can imagine it was annoying at a 7-11, there is no denying that up-selling actually works.

Well the plan is money money money. Id guesstimate that 1/4 of all customers just want what they came for and to leave. But offering a fast food customer a drink does work alot. If your not some super enthusiatic people person the up sell can be the dread of the day. What your selling doesn't matter all the company cares is wringing every dollar out of a customer. No matter how much it pisses of the customer or the employees.

The employees day goes well beyond the upsell. Every company is always trying to save time by using new methods that take longer. Wendy's corporate idiots think that asking a customer "That's With A Coke?" everytime they order will save time. It actually confuses 90% of customers. They will either pause for 10 seconds or Tell you Yes and then go no no no I want a "Whatever" or even go the ultra route and say pepsi. I have proved time and time again you save time by not doing what they tell you to do. One day you will come into work with a new way of making or serving a product. They expect it to take 10 seconds less time and the new method specifies it takes 30 seconds longer than the way it was done before. Nothings impossible in their world.

At my current QSR I do not repeat orders back to make sure they are correct. Why you ask? I do repeat a few orders back every day. Almost every time I do the order ends up still being wrong. I usually know thats the order to repeat by the way the customer ordered. When you repeat the order back they will tell you its correct. It can be because they can't understand you but its often because people have no clue what they ordered or they were not listening.

Most of the consultants that these companies use have been selling the exact same lines since the early 80's. I remember the consultant they hired when this new Dunkin Donuts franchise opened near my house. Guy was selling lines acting like no one had ever heard of LAST Listen Apologize Satisfy Thank... i mean where did you pull that out of. He was selling it as Solve instead of Satisfy and googling brings up more variations like BLAST. These guys know their selling bullshit. Even better than you can get a degree in this shit. This isn't hospitality management or human relations training. Ultimately I quit as store manager and took that consultants job. Now if only that job position survived owner changes lmao.

 

[NotAnalGrap]

whats a taquito though?

Taquito - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bob369963]

OK, Ok Rain I'll clarify a little bit. Up-selling in every single market may not be "right" or even "acceptable" to you, but as someone who has instituted these "Draconian" policies on unsuspecting employees. I can attest that they do actually work. In some markets they work very well indeed. However I must say that the markets I was doing this in were upscale ticket items where an extra hundred bucks, or more, was no big deal and more than likely did not significantly alter the buying decision. I will tell you this though, of all the companies I have put these policies in place the salespeople benefited from doing this in the form of more money for them. I would imagine in a fast food environment there is no compensation for the up-sale, which has a detrimental affect on everyone involved. If I happened to be in a fast food environment I would not institute these types of tactics without the right type of integration. You can read that as the right people with the companies best interest at heart. Probably not going to find this type of person in your typical larger city environment fast food establishment. However go outside of the cities and you'll see and have a much different experience.

For instance you know I go on a annual fishing trip up north. We always stop at this McDonald's on the way there and on the way back. Not just because it's on the way and it's convenient. We stop there cause it's the best McDonald's meal all of us have ever had. The employees actually care about what they are doing and serving. The food served actually looks like the pictures on the menu. The food tastes better than any McDonald's restaurant we've ever ate at. It's a refreshing experience all around. If i were the owner or manager of that place I would have no problem instituting these types of policies. The McDonald's by my current place of employment I refuse to eat at, cause the food tastes like shit, looks like shit, and the people serving it are no better and could actually care less about you or the company they work for. As a mater of fact they will likely tell you they don't give a shit about you or your meal.

So yeah trying to institute a policy that would benefit just the company would not work so well in that market. You actually have to have people who give a shit.

 

[RainMotorsports]

Food looks like the picture? Thats a miracle. I can't make the lettuce come out of the bag as green as that shit is in the picture. No seriously. A customer asked me to make her fully loaded nacho's look like the picture. I proceeded to laugh in her face. She left happy and it didn't look like the picture. Dunno how that worked out but it did. McDonald's is a little bit easier the pictures don't look that unrealistic.

I dunno you have to love the laziest upsell possible. When i was at the movies today the cup rack had signs between each size with an arrow to the larger and larger and larger saying only 50 cents more. Some poor bastard used to have to say that. Now the boat dealers are going to have signs that say add a microwave for only 200 more lol.

Place im at now really loves their acrynoyms. But every single one of them is worthless. DYFJ is the only one you ever need to teach employees. Do your fucking job. Whatever it happens to be this month do it because next month were changing it and 6 months from now were going back to the way it used to be. Stay in a small franchised out business for long enough and you will see they only have 2 ways to do something and about every 6 months they toggle thinking something will get better. Also if they can not find anything wrong they will invent something new. I swear if a corporate auditor can't find something wrong they will get fired. Once got told at DDBR that we couldnt have door mats out unless it was raining.

One of my problems is the manager training at this place actually has things like "There is no try" and "Stories don't equal results". Complete horseshit aimed at very kindly saying we don't give a fuck why you failed. It was your fault, don't do it again even though its probably going to happen again in the future. If they ask you why a customer has been waiting 9 minutes, the fact they ordered 60 dollars worth of food with 12 customers in front of them is a completely unacceptable excuse.

 

[Bob369963]

"One of my problems is the manager training at this place actually has things like "There is no try" and "Stories don't equal results". Complete horseshit aimed at very kindly saying we don't give a fuck why you failed. It was your fault, don't do it again even though its probably going to happen again in the future. If they ask you why a customer has been waiting 9 minutes, the fact they ordered 60 dollars worth of food with 12 customers in front of them is a completely unacceptable excuse."


Ouch....

 

[Soulzz]

Sounds like bad management. A good manager does his/her best to improve their employees whilst remembering that mistakes happen. My mom worked at a similar job like the one you describe as a tax executive. Needless to say, after 15 years, she quit because of the cheap decisions her boss made.

 

[RainMotorsports]

I wish I was still at my old store id copy off the manager training crap. The store I am at now is being managed a little more properly. Its interesting. Before I was used to the corporate method of they wanted the impossible. Fast, Accurate, Good Customer Service. You can only have two during a rush unless your willing to pay for a huge crew. But thats not a reality they want money money money so keep the labor percentage low.

District Manager and the Store Manager quit. The people that replaced them are not worried about labor percentage. They are more concerned with Accuracy and Customer Service than speed. I seem to be the only person freaking out about speed at the moment. Honestly most people will wait if your friendly and the food is good.