Good Morning,
Have you noticed how McDonald's is now in the gourmet coffee business? They have invested a lot of money in getting the best premium coffee and have even won taste tests against such coffee magnates as Starbucks. McDonald's is obviously trying to enter this highly profitable sector and carve off huge tracks of Starbuck's and other gourmet coffee house's market share.
I personally do not see this succeeding over the long term for one simple reason. McDonald's crew members, no matter how willing and able, cannot seem to get my order right more than 70% of the time. About 1 out of 3 visits to McDonalds has me driving away with something I did not order or missing, missing something I did order, or something I ordered prepared incorrectly. This is not a recent happening, it has been the norm ever since I started going to McDonald's drive through over the last twenty years or so. How much training do these employees get before being let loose on the customers?
Starbucks has 24 hours, 3 days, of training for each of their 'baristas' to prepare coffee before being unleashed on customers. This plus practical on the job training, produces an efficient machine where my orders have rarely, if ever, been wrong.
McDonald's can under-price Starbucks, be more places than Starbucks, but unless they match the training and attention to detail that Starbucks puts into making coffee right, I will not be ordering my gourmet coffee from them. I want my order done correctly.
The focus on training is the key. If you give minimal training to people and expect to 'manage' them to higher performance, with hopes of engaging each employee's mental acumen, you may be sorely disappointed. More often than not, there is not a lot of training new jobs and or hires. Folks have to figure out the ropes themselves by either reading the manuals (which are getting thicker and more legalistic every year) or by asking a lot of questions and hoping someone will take pity on them and help them out.
This sink or swim mentality will kill any operation or business function because of the both the amount of errors made and lessened morale of the staff trying to muddle their way through.
Giving training to get the job done correctly addresses both the issues of quality and morale. Many companies have gotten it right with internal training teams and a focus on constantly improving the quality of training and thus the finished products. Others, put a lot of effort on style over substance, like presenting a high quality product line to compete in a new market without support systems in place to help truly compete.
Training does make a better coffee, and I know where to go to get my cup of coffee made right for me.
Enjoy!
Sanford@berenberg.net
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