Related to Marco’s quote from FastCompany, I saw this kind of business practice first-hand yesterday.
I was in NYC with a couple friends for the weekend, and we wanted to try Shake Shack. We head to the theater district location to grab it for lunch on Sunday. It’s good.
We weren’t leaving until about 5pm on Monday, and we found ourselves down near Madison Square Park the next day (after meeting Zach Galifianakis at the Today Show set), so two of us stop in to grab another burger while the third traveler just gets a shake. I also got a Shake Shack shirt (which I am wearing today).
The friend that just got a shake decided he wanted a shirt too, but instead of getting a matching shirt, we’d head back to the theater district location so he could get one in a different color. He decides he wants a burger at this point, so I figure I might as well grab a root beer float. This is where Marco’s quote comes in.
A few minutes pass. He’s got his shirt and his buzzer alerts him that his burger is ready. He walks back to the table with two burgers and a shake (after ordering one burger). Why? Because someone didn’t pick up the extra burger and shake, so Shake Shack didn’t want them to go to waste. They could have just given the burger to the next person who ordered a burger and a shake, but because it had been sitting for a couple minutes, (I think) they didn’t want to give that food as a “fresh” meal … but it was still great for a free bonus.
That’s cool and all, but the one-time thing isn’t necessarily indicative of a “Driving Goodwill” business mentality … but I haven’t gotten my root beer float yet. I don’t want to be the guy who feels entitled to fast service, but my buzzer hadn’t buzzed for my order, and my order didn’t require cooking or detailed construction. I head back up to the counter and ask if I missed my order getting called, and the lady behind the counter was extremely apologetic. She finds the cup of custard that hadn’t been root-beered yet and gets it for me quickly. She says I shouldn’t have waited at all and that because it took too long, she was going to give me a refund. She hands me back my $5 and the root beer float.
The cynics might write it off as this one employee playing fast and loose on the company’s dime, but she made me believe that Shake Shack is (in Marco’s words) “trying to find new and tiny ways to delight their customers.”
