O'chimpanzee's again? OH HELL NO! HOW REVOLTING

I am breaking from the usual review style format to write about something very pressing and very important to me. For a long time now, I have realized the importance of many approaches when providing customer-service in and out of restaurants. As I write this, my mind races with several blood-boiling questions:

• What defines a good experience?
• What is the biggest priority when dealing with customers?
• What sort of balance should be maintained as a salesperson when dealing with company pressures and guest satisfaction?
• Why the fuck must everything be a walking billboard?
  

To set the stage before I answer these questions, I need to relate an experience from my past. I used to work for Grady's American Grill many years ago in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the time, Grady's was a corporate concept under the Brinker International umbrella. They would used motivated sales contests to inspire the servers to push certain dishes onto the customers, offering prizes. When I started working for them, they ran a Salmon selling contest. It was national, so the person of all the stores who sold the most salmon in a month would win $250. I was young, new, and greedy so I utilized every adjective and persuasive word in my vernacular to inspire, coerce and otherwise hypnotize guests into ordering salmon. I ranked third in the store, even though I started a week late. At what cost?
One woman didn't like her Caesar salad because the salmon was overpowering. Another woman sent back her salmon because she never had it before and hated the strong taste. A man remarked that he should have gone with his first choice and ordered a slab of prime rib. How had I, a server, served these people? By dousing them with sales expectations and motivated product placement I gave them what *I* wanted, NOT what they wanted. These people did not have a good experience and it was my fault for doing the job the corporation told me to do. I had prioritized the motivated sales campaign over the guests and left them in the dirt. I had lost any sense of balance between corporate expectations and guest expectations. I had become the commercial.
Why am I telling you about Grady's when the title says something else?
O'Chimpanzee's (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent) has begun a campaign to "revolution"-ize their concept. They are remodeling their restaurants, retraining their crews, and restructuring their approach to be the "best in the class". What does this all mean?
When servers approach their tables they use motivated sales pitches to drive home the products offered into the minds of the guest with an expected 1 in 10 success rate, at what cost? see above. The most frequently used method is something akin to:
"Hey welcome to O'Chimpanzee's. My name is Lamefucktard. You know you could really go for a Banamonkeyslushie. It's delicious and made with fresh bananas. It's so refreshing."
formulaic indeed...you have....name product+describe product+reinforce pleasure from product= stupid billboard sign with an apron.
What is wrong with this approach? Well, according to any corporation seeking to sell a product...nothing. But ask yourself, dear reader, how many times have you heard this pitch? The radio? Television perhaps? On the phone maybe? How about on billboards? Maybe on the sides on trucks as they drive by flipping from one message to the next? What about bathroom walls? Oh and don't forget the coupon dispensers at supermarkets, not to mention commercials during the first 15 minutes of a movie.
Okay, so corporations who own these restaurants want to get the message out...nothing wrong with that. They use TV commercials, radio spots, mail out coupons, even phone surveys with some product placement. The REAL question is, why do people go out to eat?
First, they go out so they can avoid having to cook. Perhaps, they are traveling, moving, or just dog tired and want someone else to cook for them. Not a big deal, walk in sit down and BLAMMO hungry diner's paradise.
Second, they go out to spend time with other people. It's a birthday, anniversary, bridal shower, bachelor party, baby shower, secret romantic rendezvous, two angry spouses out to drink away their dissatisfaction for the loved one left at "home", etc.
Third, They enjoy the food and service of the establishment and just want to patronize a corporation they loyally love and adore because the corporation is so good at dictating exactly what they love and adore. Um, no.....not gonna happen.
In the first case...people are tired and want somewhere to relax and "get away from it all." If you have a server pushing this that or the other on them several times during the experience, how relaxed will they be? That Bananamonkeyslushie will do NOTHING for them, and if you keep pushing it on them...it will get shoved where the sun doesn't shine.
In the second case...people want to talk, to converse, to share meaningful dialog, to express themselves to one another, and to just be around people they care about. If a self-righteous overly aggressive company formulated Bananamonkeyslushie pusher comes to their table to interrupt their conversations about the husband who was found naked with her best friend, they will not score any bonus points, they will not pass go, and they will not collect a 20% tip.
I guess the major issue I am getting at is that these people, these human beings, these guests are there to enjoy themselves. So why not treat them like people instead of wallets with no brains?
Customer service truly begins when you start to find out what the guest wants and you get it for them, when you take interest in their dietary needs. When you unmask the server and show that it is a genuine compassionate person behind the apron whose only intention is to see those people leave satisfied. So take the Bananamonkeyslushies back to Shmuck E Sleeze where it belongs.