James Bond Coffee Drinkers
Every where you go in the customer service industry world there is always that one customer. You guys know what I am talking about don’t you? They only want to be waited on by the same employee every time. If that employee is off if someone else handles this customers order it is always wrong, even if you follow their instructions to a “T”.
I was a new manager at a local coffee shop, and let me tell you that coffee drinkers are indeed the pickiest customers on the planet! “I want 9 sugars, 12.5 creamers, and stir it counter clockwise 4 times.” I’m not joking! There is this one customer that comes in every morning before taking her children to school and she orders her coffee the same way every day, “medium iced coffee, double French vanilla, filled half way with milk, 8 equals melted.” Seems easy enough right? Wrong! If Michelle wasn’t working that day, this customer gave whoever was working hell, before ordering her coffee, during the entire time someone was making her coffee, and after she received her coffee she would complain that it wasn’t right. We all cringed whenever she would come in and Michelle wasn’t there.
After watching this customer call one of my staff retarded, because they couldn’t make a simple cup of coffee, I had it!!! Name calling is so juvenile, and my staff doesn’t get paid enough to take this kind of abuse from anyone! I asked the lady to hold on while I called Michelle on her day off and asked her to walk me through over the phone how to make this lady’s coffee. It was so stupid I was laughing as I was making this coffee order, and it was pissing off the customer more and more that I thought this was so funny. Once the coffee was prepared to her liking, I explained to her that I would personally teach each and every one of my staff how to properly prepare her coffee so that we wouldn’t run into this problem ever again. I then told her that from now on whoever was working the front counter at the time she arrives, that employee will serve her. Not Michelle, not me. She needed to give my staff a chance to get to know her, and she needed to get to know my staff too.
This was the last complaint out of her, and she continued to frequent my store on a daily basis.
On a different note I must say I wish I could have said, “Don’t choke!”