Faking it with strangers

My friend Sara, who is a retail planner (and who inspired this post in June), has some interesting thoughts about the disconnect between a company and its employee. When retail began, she says, it was filled with people selling their own wares and therefore genuinely excited about their product. Now, though, the employee has no connection to the product he or she is selling. Consequently, she writes:

Retail can be "immersive" in the sense that the store immerses the customer. Stores surround customers with their version of the world, and employees are left to simply play along.

I think retail goes one step further in the wrong direction: Not only does it require its employees to play along, but in the pursuit of that "immersive" experience, some companies demand that employees act enthused in extremely phony and awkward ways. And it's not just pieces of flair in "Office Space." At a Mexican-style restaurant chain called Moe's, for example, employees are expected to all croon "Welcome to Moe's!" when customers come in. But whenever we go, all the employees mumble it as if they've said it for the 300th time that day -- and they probably have, the poor bastards. Elsewhere, at Coldstone Creamery, employees were (are?) required to sing a song whenever a customer tips.

This sort of thing fails on two levels: First, it's obvious the employees aren't genuinely excited, and nor should they be. The people at Moe’s are burrito makers, not actors. And two, this sort of faux excitement makes the customer uncomfortable. Nobody's being fooled into thinking the cashier at Moe's is somehow so invested in the company that he really wants to welcome people this way. Instead, the gimmick makes me feel like, as a customer, I’m imposing something upon the employee. Sure, I didn’t tell them they had to chant “Welcome to Moe’s,” but they wouldn’t have said it at a particular moment if I didn’t just walk in. I’m an incidental taskmaster, and I don’t like it.

Sara’s suggests that retailers should go out of their way to hire people who connect with the product, and where possible, that makes a lot of sense to me. But if they can’t find staff that loves the company, they should also understand the limitations of their employees. What sounds great in a corporate meeting -- no doubt, things that fall under the mantra of “customer experience” -- doesn’t always translate in the actual retail environment. Customers and employees both understand their relationship, and there’s no use altering it by force.

Posted by Jason Feifer at December 26, 2005 09:45 AM