Local: Yes, Miss Hardee’s manager, I’m the one who told you to shut up and take my order
Well, technically, I didn’t I didn’t tell you to shut up.* I just interrupted you while you were blathering and told you to take my order.
Here’s why: I work for a living. I don’t wear a suit and tie to work, so that means my bosses give me a limited amount of time for lunch. If I don’t bring my lunch or want to eat out of vending machines, I have to get in my car and visit one of four nearby drive-thru restaurants.
By the time I drive from work to the Hardee’s on Northpoint, at least 10 minutes has gone by. So I wasn’t too happy that the two cars ahead of me in line took an estimated 10 minutes to get their orders taken. Granted, this could be the fault of those particular customers. But I don’t think so. Here’s why:
Eventually, it was my time to give my order. When I asked about the availability of a particular item, you started to go into a spiel about how much you regretted that your store no longer carried …
At that point, I stopped you and told you exactly what I wanted instead. When you started in about whether I wanted to upgrade, I responded with a curt “no” and pulled around.
You see, Miss Hardee’s Manager, you think you are being friendly and courteous by putting a smile in your voice while you waste my time. You think you are being helpful by asking if I want items I don’t ask for. Allow me to dissuade you of this misconception.
In case you’ve forgotten since you graduated from Hardee’s equivalent of Hamburger University, peoeple use the drive-thru when they are in a hurry. Therefore, you need to treat every single person in the drive-thru like they are 20 minutes into their 30-minute lunch break and forgo the frigging chatty-Cathy routine. I doesn’t brighten my day in the least. In fact, even when I’m not rushed fo time, excessive friendliness strikes me a phony. In this case, it put me a foul mood and left me disinclined to visit your store again.
By jabbering away, you came thisclose to making me late for work. And that’s not good service.
I much prefer cold, cool efficiency to lousy service provided with a smile.
All I want from the voice at the drive thru-window is that you take our orders and get it right the first time. By all means, use a friendly tone and say “thank you,” but don’t try to bond with me in the drive-thru lane. If I wanted that, I would have parked and walked inside the joint.
Have a nice day.
* Yes, I admit this is probably not the wisest thing I’ve written under my own name. I’ll add it to the list.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
People don’t attempt to upsale because they love the thrill of it, they do it because someone higher up has told them to (unless they are on commission which I am guess the Hardees’ employees are not).
I would mention, though, that since the advent of the “Six Dollar Burger” Hardees is not really the quick service restaurant you’d think–it’s like going through drive through at Steak N Shake.
I wouldn’t try to do any drive through on a short lunch in the Peoria area except the McDonald’s at Prospect & War or the one on North University near Pioneer. Every other drive thru in Peoria is abominably slow.
I try to NOT use fast-food drive-thrus — except when time is very limited.
There are dozens of great locally-owned joints in Peoria.
One of these days, I’m going to write a story listing all the joints only locals know about.
Eh, I feel your pain Billy. I hate it too. However, at my job I’m pretty much forced into it. We have “secret shoppers”. I don’t offer an additional product or service and there goes the bonus money. Since I like bonus money and don’t want fellow employees beating the hell out of me by costing them bonus money, too, you, the customer, gets the “spiel”.
The Wendys in front of Cubs and Target off War Memorial Drive is consistantly fast… plus their food is so much better than Burger King, AND, they have removed trans-fats from their food. Its the tri-fecta of fast food!
… And unfortunately, too far away to do me any good during lunch breaks. Gonna have to brown-bag it, which is what I should be doing anyway.
As James mentioned, it is hard to call Hardees “fast food”.
They have a sign saying that int he drive-thru lanes I have seen, lately.
Note that I have only seen those signs as I am walking in. I almost never use the drive-thru. If there is ANY kind of a line, I will walk past the same car in line going in and out of the place.
Over here in Bloomington, there’s a Hardees on College Avenue that sits right next to a Taco Bell. On any given day, you’ll see ten cars (literally) in the drive-thru for Taco Bell and nary a one in the Hardee’s drive-thru.
There have been times when I’ve been asked to pull forward into one of the waiting spaces (like they do at Culvers). This is the kiss of doom at Hardees. Pretty much guarantees that you’re going to have to get out of your car and go inside to get your order after sitting in your car and waiting 15 minutes.
I agree with DV, Wendy’s is better.
And here I was expecting you to have run into someone blathering on about personal stuff to co-workers and not serving you. The poor drive thru person was just doing what they are told to do. Yeah it sucks for you but they worker isn’t happy about it either. Nothing like being bitched at for doing your job.
It’s annoying as all get-out to have the squawk-box voice ask you to order the product of the month when you’re trying to remember the orders of everyone in the car (and I just have two other family members). It’s just a non-sequitur when you’re trying to hold on to short-term memory.
“No, I do not want to order the fried jalapeno-poppers topped with cherry-pie pastries and mozzerella sticks with au jus. What I DO want is… Oh, hell, what do I want again?”
It’s why I always refused to answer the phone at Kinko’s with the studid question of the month. Nobody listens to it; it just adds a further annoyance to the conversation. Quit annoying your customers and ask them what they really want. And no, I do not want to mega-jumbo-quadruple size it for 79 cents.
Is anyone else annoyed that Taco Bell has changed its Drive-Thru greeting??
I have been to a couple locations that now begin the ordering process with a “Hello, how are you today?” which immediately requires me to respond “Not too bad, how about you?” and then their response followed by silence. Now I would prefer that they just dispatch pleasantries and skip right to a “Hi, can I take you order?” If I wanted fantastic service I’d go to a nice sit down restaurant, instead I have chosen to not even take my lazy a$$ out of my vehicle and pull up to a window to get food thats been sitting under a heat lamp for God knows how long…
I cannot wait for the day when we can just pull up to a touch screen and place our order and then pull around to the credit card/ cash machine a la Kroger’s Uscan and insert my own payment, then all you need is someone to hand me the food…
Mahkno: As a consumer, I have the right to bitch and moan about bad service whether the bad service is caused by malingering employees or employees who are doing what management tells them to do. Bad service is bad service, whatever the cause.
You can bitch all you like Bill but in this case I would tune you out. The standard is set by corporate or the franchise owner. There is nothing the guy on the box can do, except lose his job. Take up your furor with them, not the guy in the store.
I can so relate to this “ridiculously short lunch just give me my food” story. (Funny how daysiders always seemed to have plenty of time for lunch.) Thanks for reminding me how nice it is not to be doing that anymore.
Regarding the two McDonald’s and one Hardees within a mile of the Journal Star, I found the Hardees on Adams to be consistently the fastest. The Adams Street McDonald’s varied from extremely slow to “am I in hell?” slow.
It’s sometimes faster to get out of the car and go inside at a fast-food joint if there are more than two cars ahead of you. I found this often was true at the Prospect-War Memorial McDonald’s.
No matter how bad the service, it’s always a risk to complain BEFORE you get your food, lest you end up with a snot sandwich!
[...] Consistently, the folks at McDonald’s on North University near Pioneer Parkway have been providing the cooly efficient and quick service I have been seeking. [...]
As someone in retail, I can assure you that in my location, we are forced to recite spiel to our customers when checking out no matter if the customer is in a hurry or not. The “powers that be” think this is a great way to put some extra money in their pocket when it actually just iritates the customer (and some don’t come back). Chewing out the workers doesn’t do a bit of good since we don’t make the rules. Whether I am tring to upsale you or offer something is not my choice.
I chewed out no one. I simply stated what I wanted, paying no head to the noise coming out of her mouth.
[...] Consistently, the folks at McDonald’s on North University near Pioneer Parkway have been providing the cooly efficient and quick service I have been seeking. [...]