We take for granted that when we walk into a business, they will have what is necessary to function. I’m learning that is not always the case.
Yesterday at Chipotle, they were out of veggies. My friend paid in cash at the register, and they were out of singles, leaving them to give her almost $5 in quarters. Then I went to get a drink, and they were out of Coke and Mr.Pibb. Any one of those lapses would have been annoying but brushed off, but when there is an accumulation of problems (and not the first time similar things have happened at this restaurant), it points to a management problem.
It is also likely an upper management problem since no one seems to have corrected this pattern. Do they even notice it? If you have a front-facing business, it is to your benefit to employ/deploy secret shoppers. When I worked on campus, I learned so much from taking a class, from registration challenges, billing delays, the condition of classrooms, difficulty in navigating the learning management system, etc. They were all things I would have never seen from my office, but they were clear when I saw them from a student perspective. I wonder how a Chipotle exec would have felt about walking out with a pocket full of quarters.
You don’t have to be an undercover boss, but getting direct input from a user perspective is a valuable management tool. Craft ways to let others share their experiences about what your organization is really like.
