The Customer

Customers are strange creatures. Like a suicide bomber, they seem self-destructive and always looking for a target to take out in their last moments. I could discuss customers in many fashions; retail, service, entertainment, the list can go as long as we can come up with new things people will want. However, from my own experience, I find it best to discuss the customers of the food industry, mainly the wonderful world of pizza (with sandwiches thrown in for good measure).

The idea of the customer to the food industry is a little fearful, because you are taking the already unstable mind of the consumer and adding hunger to the mix. ‘Wants’ can make a normal person go a little off the edge, but throw in a very basic ‘need’ such as food, and you have a person who wants what he wants, and needs it now.

Though you, the employee, are there to help the customer achieve this goal, all they see you as is an obstacle they need to get through in order to reach their desire. We must accept the fact that all customers to the food industry are already angry, and you are the enemy. You might wonder if there is a way to avoid this situation, but there is none. Until we event a vending machine that can handle already cooked pizza, there is no faster means of receiving it. So, we come to understand the customer is angry.

This is not the only thing that angers customers, though. Choices become a fire under their powder keg rage. Why? For starters, the lack of choices attacks on their right to be able to choose from any food at any time. After all, they are entitled to have what they want, how they want. Take this entitlement and limit it and you offend not only their creative intellects for coming up with such choices, but their God-given right of options. In the world of pizza, all topping should be able to be chosen, be it the simple pepperoni or the rare Russian sturgeon. A customer is not going to be satisfied with only one type of cheese, especially having been to ‘real’ Italian restaurants that sell ‘real’ Italian pizza. When selling pizza by the slice, you must always have options; pepperoni for those who like meat but not a lot, meat pizzas for those who want meat but not the taste, vegetable for those who hate meat in general, and cheese slices for those who hate everything.

But, these are only the basic options you can allow because many customers will come in with their own types of ideas of what makes a good pizza slice. There is no real winning solution here, as your best hope is to have many plain slices around that you can add to as the customer roars for options. However, a hungry shopper, while desiring many choices, can quickly become paralyzed with too many options. You will quickly notice these types by the ones that rush in the store, salivating for food, yet stop dead in their tracks when they see the mass amount of choices before them. They will stare at the food, as if they are seeing it for the first time. They will look at you, as if pleading for help. In the end, they will purchase a pepperoni slice, not wanting to get too fancy but still avoiding the normality of plain cheese.

I will assume that most of you will be able to get the customer past the moments of making a decision, as hard as this can be. After all, options are not without prices. We live in a world of coupons and weekly deals, where the customer must be bargained to buy what you are selling at all times. How many pizzas can they get for free will always be the main question, as most shoppers will be hoping to spend as little as to no money as they can. Here we come again to offending these people. For you to even gather the gall to assume they would want your product enough to pay for it is purely an illusion of grandeur. Most of the time, you must assume, the customer doesn’t want anything you have. So, you must reason them to you. You can’t give them a pizza for free, but you can give them toppings for free, as well as drinks or second pizzas. They will always be happy for free items, even when they see that, at the end, you are still asking for money. I cannot tell you of how many times I have made it all the way to the end of the transaction and had the customer leave in a fiery rage because money was required.

These are but parts of the customer experience you, the employee, will have to deal with personally. But do not think that these are the limits to the trial. For instance, while most customers like to arrive for food with time to spare, there are those that are so busy doing important jobs that the only time they have for pizza is three minutes before you close. They, though late, are still customers and deserve food as they demand it, even after you’ve cleaned and closed most of your kitchen. It’s not their fault you took unwarranted initiative; they are far busier than you can ever believe and you have no other purpose then to provide them with food.

Customers. I have seen them come in and wipe out a store of the entire product you have to offer and leave behind more trash than is physically manageable. I have seen them storm through, wave their arms and demand all of heaven’s treasure upon them and then leave in fury when you only gave them half. They are irrational, determined, and they are how we are paid. Without them, business dies and we leave poor. Good luck to you, employee.