Coming up with engaging conversations for pre-shift was this on-going game with me; I took it on as my own personal challenge to make the 10-15 minutes as entertaining for all of us as possible, while sharing the knowledge everyone needed for the day ahead. If we had to have line up, we may as well enjoy ourselves and learn something useful at the same time. One of my favorite line-up routines was to do a 5-minute brainstorm we called “How to drive a customer crazy.” We talked about what not to do in a way that had most of us rolling in laughter at the possible outrageous scenarios. However it was also very effective in actually speaking out loud those reminders of bad habits we really shouldn’t do. The staff would throw out suggestions that sounded awful, but usually they were possible: They really were big no-no’s, and saying them out loud, even in jest, kept us aware of them enough to keep them at bay. Here are some samples of what would come up for us: How to Drive a Customer Crazy. Is your pet peeve here? What would you add to the list? What drives you crazy when you’re the customer? Rosa Say, author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business and the Talking Story blog. Previous Thursday Column: From Mistake to Marvel.
