Too funny that this came up today. My youngest (6 years old) told us yesterday that his 3rd job is going to be a the Bell. 1st at Burger King, 2nd at Moes Southwest Grill. That he was going to live in our current house and since he didn't know how to drive we were going to take him to and from work.....

I like the term "suggestive sell."

I was at Applebee's last week, and the bartender tried to sell me the "tub o' beer." I said to him, after he asked twice, that I appreciated the effort he was putting into the upsell but that I wasn't interested and that he'd get a better tip if he stopped asking.

He did and got 20%. God bless America!

I am so glad they outlined what kind of smile one should give a customer. Usually I get the kind that expresses misery and self-loathing.

Am I the only one who noticed the section labeled "POS Abbreviations" in the lower-right corner?

Looks pretty good to me. Especially the "LAST" emblem. I think it says Listen, Appologize, Satisfy and Thank. Every CSR should have that posted by his/her desk!

This seems to me to be the most reasonable of the scripted training I have seen. There are some places that consistently try to upsell you on new products. This seems to make sure you have a tasty beverage to go with your meal.

A drink? I had almost forgotten. I would like a Baja Blast Mountain Dew, if you please...

Taco Bell stores their beef in giant garbage bags. When they need to re-fill the beef, they cut a corner in a bag and squeeze it out like a huge turd.

@HappyPuppy: There are worse smiles. I've seen smiles that look as though the employee wants to skin me alive and eat my internal organs. Sharp, sharp teeth.

@Smitherd:
My guess is "point of sale" but my 10-year old mind went there immediately too.

I like how they're supposed to ask how you are today, but they aren't supposed to ask for your order. If I actually went to the Taco Bell drive thru, I would answer "ok" and then wait for them to ask for my order.

Despite cartoon flowcharts that a 3rd grader could understand....the fast food workers STILL screw it up. How?!?! The scary part is that many of the fast food workers are of voting age.

@Smitherd: I got a little chuckle out of that.

Bean Burritos are like Huckabees to me.

"Thank you. I have verify order. Dots. That comes to dollar sign. Dots. Please pull to the window."

Am I superstar material?

Hey that guy looks caucasian

Apparently, "POS" means "parent over shoulder" to some kids. I always took it as "piece of ****".

@FLConsumer: You're just now noticing this? I have been weeping for our future for a number of years now, and I'm not even 30.

Wearing your pants down to your knees is just sad. I saw a guy downtown the other day crossing the street with one hand holding his pants up. The sad thing is he was walking into the metro courthouse. If that is dressing up for court, I wonder what dressing down is.

No further suggestive sell??? Are they morons??? What about cinnamon twists!! The best reason for going to Taco Bell at all is the deep fried sugar coated twisty things!!!

(awright, now I gotta to go Taco Bell for lunch, and then go home early because my stomach hurts:))

@ptkdude: It doesn't bother me. I usually either respond with "Fine, thank you, I'd like (x)" or "Fine, thank you, and you?" ... just polite manners. I don't drag it out and if I don't get a response (some people don't) I just pause and then order. No big deal.

Nothing wrong with promoting politeness. It's fast becoming a lost art.

@Smitherd: Delicious MILF-BIT and CUMMELT

"Insider document"?? Is this stuff really all that secretive? It's really cool to see but I'm kind of astonished that there's not loads of this floating around on the Internet.

Does this sign come in another language? Every time I go to the drive thru, the person speaks zero english. (I don't mean to offend) but if you work the drive thru you should be required to be able to understand what I am saying....

@timmus: You must have missed the tongue in our cheek.

@Buran: I know, I kind of like it. It was weird, the first time the Taco Bell drive-thru said "Hi, how are you?" but now, it's sort of nice.

I would prefer a nice offer to help though - "How may I help you?" - instead.

I would imagine KFC's instructional poster looks more like a guide to dealing blackjack.

Having worked at KFC in highschool, this document forgets to instruct the person on how to CHECK THE FUCKING ORDER BEFORE IT GOES OUT.

All your pleasentries mean shit when your customer can't gorge themselves on your beefy cheesy whats-a-dick, then come back all pissed off.

At least it doesn't have them "suggest" an apple pie if you order a drink - and as basic as these instructions are, remember the typical smarts of your average fast food employee.

Our Taco Hell uses a recording to greet drive-thru customers. "Hello, welcome to Taco Hell. Would you like to try our new Toasted Flatulence Inducer today?"

Me: Uh, no. I'll have two bean burritos and a small coke.

Recorded greeting is almost always upbeat and female. Actual drive-thru employee is usually, uh, not so much. It kinda throws you off.

@Ben Popken: Better than missing your tongue in his cheek.

Regardless, I know a certain someone who is making a run for the border tonight, eh Nicholas_schaulsohn?

CMBLT? Ugh.. That's a mouthful.

Heh, common courtesy is all you need.

I don't think that document is all that secret. I saw it on a sign behind the counter at my local Taco Bell. It was very easy to see from the customer's standpoint.

POS = Point of Sale (aka Cash Register)

Just to clear that up...

@Steaming Pile: How does a bean burrito not qualify as a toasted flatulence inducer?

@mbouchard:
Lol. Kids are fantastic at that age.

@Steaming Pile: This drives me nuts. The recording is automatic, so I never know if the order taker is ready to take my order or not, and I hold everything up until the human tells me to go ahead.

Same for the friendly greeting. Obviously they want to greet you as soon as possible to acknowledge that they know you're there, but I don't like to proceed until they indicate that they're ready, after all, they're doing other things in that booth.

@EJXD2: Cause it's grilled.

@char: Hehe yeah, the same Taco Bell drive thru guy always asks "Hot sauce?", I always reply "yes please" and he ALWAYS hands me the bag without any hot sauce. I forgot to double check last time before driving away, but luckily we keep a stash of extra packets for just such an occasion.

@CRNewsom: Seriously. This is actually pretty damn tasteful for company training/literature.

@Buran: Being the contrarian schmuck that I naturally am, I don't find it particularly polite that people automatically ask how you're doing when they don't really care. I don't often think about it in those terms, but have before. I've known a few people who think it's rude of me NOT to ask in return.

When someone I don't know asks "how are you today" or some other such prepackaged greeting, I'll usually say "fine thanks" and proceed with the business at hand, and a woman I know thinks I should ask how this person I don't know is, when frankly I don't care and don't even think it's any of my business.

Then again, I don't pretend I'm normal.

Just watch one show of maury and you will see why they have to dumb down everything.

yo quiero taco bell!!!

I like to do things out of order which totally throws them off. You can hear the pause as they mentally put things in order. Then they ask you the questions in order again. lol.

@GearheadGeek: The flipside is, even if someone doesn't care a whole lot, it's polite, it's easy enough to respond appropriately, and it does encourage good manners in general so people who are used to inquiring and responding will hopefully do so in cases where it matters more.

That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it, but I can see how a "Welcome to (x), how may I help you?" works as well.

In the wack-a-do world that fast food executives live in,this passes for "service". Like the 16 year old chimp behind that plastic counter gives two shits about...Anything,especially how I am doing today.
It's like we are cattle eating slightly more processed (and seasoned) cattle...

@Nicholas_schaulsohn:
"Taco Bell stores their beef in giant garbage bags. When they need to re-fill the beef, they cut a corner in a bag and squeeze it out like a huge turd."

As lovely an image as this is, it is not completely accurate. It isn't really "stored" in garbage bags. That's the way it arrives from the distributor.

I worked there for a couple of years, and have to say that as unappetizing as it may look, having beef, chicken, and steak precooked and sealed in plastic bags is a really big plus for food safety. This way, it is cooked in an environment that is easier to control than thousands of restaurants, and re-heated to about 180 degrees before ever being opened at the restaurant, so they never have to deal with raw beef or chicken.

When I was 16, I worked at a friend chicken restaurant and had a very difficult time remembering the various combinations of chicken parts, potatoes, and biscuits that went into each meal. I worked there for about a year, as as of my last day I couldn't keep it straight. My performance reviews were not good. I was told not to expect any promotions to assistant manager anytime soon. Several years later, I was a waiter at Big Boy, a profession at which I also completely sucked. I recall being berated by customers on several occasions for not bringing toast with eggs, and the reason I kept doing this is that the toast is implied and usually not specifically mentioned, and so it would never occur to me.

Now I'm 35, have a degree in economics from a good school, and (I say this only because I'm anonymous here) I'm doing very well at a management consulting firm (insert joke here). But I have no doubt that if by some hideous twist of fate I had to get a job at Famous Recipe Fried Chicken again, I would need visual aides like this, or I'd be quickly fired and FLConsumer's orders would all be wrong.

I *hate* that "hi, how are you doing?" greeting they do at the drive-thru. It tripped me up twice in a row, so I just stopped going there. It's probably for the best anyway.

@Nicholas_schaulsohn: POS= Point of Sale (ie the system used to ring up the orders)

@Neurotic1: "I like to do things out of order which totally throws them off. You can hear the pause as they mentally put things in order. Then they ask you the questions in order again. lol."

If you are intentionally doing things that you know are likely to confuse a cashier, I hope that you don't complain too much when your order isn't right.

What scares me is that I can still remember the sandwich ingredients for most of the subs at Cousins subs, and I haven't worked there for over 6 years.