Chick-fil-A and the Personal Touch of Jesus Chicken in the Age of Coronavirus
Photo by kiewic via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Going through a drive-thru is almost automatic for most folks.
Pull up, order, pull up, pay, get food, go about your way. You are off quickly with food while the restaurant moves on to the next car and customer in the line. A habit so ingrained you could almost do it on muscle memory alone. Far too many folks looking at their phones while in the line try to do exactly that till a blast of horn brings their attention back.
And so it goes. Day after day. Hour after hour. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So automatic it took me a bit to figure out what was different about the new local Chick-fil-A drive thru. The line was usually busy, the employees were just as friendly moving about taking the orders. Chick-fil-A has been using real people in the queues for some time now, finding it to be both better for the customer service the brand is famous for and also efficiency in getting things right. Even still, it was right as I was handed my food from a bin by a very nice person with a black-and-white cow-themed mask that it finally hit me what was different.
There was no drive thru window. At all.
Instead, there was a doorway that looked to be multifunctional that the employees were busily coming and going through while working the covered “delivery zone” down one whole side of the building. Almost all of it covered, with fans and heaters to help with the various elements for the employees.
This particular Chick-fil-A opened April 30th, right in the middle of all the lockdowns and restrictions. Whereas another fast food-type place nearby is fully finished but unopened, the sign changed from “Opening May” to “See you this summer”, Chick-fil-A didn’t miss a beat. Some cones in the parking lot to separate the curbside pickup with the drive-thru lanes, and off they went.
The new design is the continuation and display of commitment to the customer service the chain has been riding to massive success. Controversies have come and gone for the chain but not made a dent in the popularity. Comments by the CEO and some of the charitable giving by the corporation brought protests by some LGBT activists, and the companies announcement to no longer give to some of those objected-to groups got a few online folks in a twist that Chick-fil-A was bowing to pressure. Most folks just didn’t care one way or the other as long as they got their chicken and sweet tea in a timely manner.
Those protesters took to calling Chick-fil-A “Jesus Chicken,” meaning it to be derogatory. Some of Chick-fil-A’s diehards thought that suited them just fine, and happily took the label, along with a variation borrowing that other famous chicken place’s initials and dubbing it “JFC”. All the while, profits and business continued to make Chick-fil-A one of the most profitable fast food restaurants in America.
That human touch and customer service is inarguably one of the biggest factors for that success. While the innovator and still king of drive thru, McDonalds, is pushing ever harder for more AI and tech driven ways to improve their drive thru service, Chick-fil-A is going the other way. Mickey D’s is spending millions working on algorithms, voice recognition, and even AI systems to remember previous orders and predict what you will be ordering this time. No word yet on if there is AI in the works to improve the maintenance cycles of the ever-broken ice cream machine.
Meanwhile, Chick-fil-A has a revolutionary idea of how to learn what a customer wants in their order: they ask. Nicely.
There is plenty of tech involved with Chick-fil-A’s method: receipts are printed off belt-mounted printers by an employee walking the car line, everyone has a handheld device to keep things straight, curbside can all be done right off the restaurants app. But it’s the friendly, uniformly courteous service that is really the star. It’s obvious to anyone who goes to one: there is something in Chick-fil-A’s corporate culture that trickles down to each of these franchisees. They’ve figured out that the fast food business, and the chicken business is about what all business is about, and adjusted accordingly: people.
That customer service is all the more obvious in the current Coronavirus situation. The gloves and masks were different, the food comes in a bin held out for you to reach in and get the order yourself to limit touching. The dining room part of Chick-fil-A, like everywhere else currently, is closed. In the case of this brand new one, no customer has even been in it yet. But what hasn’t changed is the double line of cars wrapped around the entire plot of land Chick-fil-A is situated on waiting to talk to those folks in the line and order their food.
It’s the little things that make a difference. Attention to detail, the sergeant will yell at the military trainees, or a teacher will implore their students, or a parent trying to get a child to notice the mess needing cleaned up. Chick-fil-A gets the details right, and in something as simple as removing the drive-thru window — the very symbol of fast food in America for the last 60-odd years — they have once again shown they know the most important detail isn’t just the chicken, or the sweet tea, or the luscious Polynesian sauce that is just perfect on the nuggets.
It’s getting the people right, both their own employees and the customers that are their guest.
Coronavirus, or come what may, be darned.
There are few Chick-fil-A’s where I live. The only one I actually know about recently opened a few blocks away from the office I visit maybe once every two weeks now, but I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t know where the others are and aren’t curious enough to find out yet.
I now realize, however, that a black-and-white cow-theme coffee mug that says “Eat more chicken,” which I found at a flea market about a quarter-century ago, before I had heard of Chick-fil-A, and picked up because I thought it was funny, must have been a Chick-fil-A souvenir.Report
Shake Shack — a local NY spot that turned into a local chain but which I believe is national now — has converted some spots to drive up/take out. They weren’t setup for that since †hey’re more fast casual than fast food but they’ve got a good system, at least at the one near me. Cones setup a clear in/out path to the back area. A worker is under a tent with an array of electronics. They greet you with cheer and kindness, something I’ve always tended to see in the restaurant. They take your order and name, then record details of your car and instruct you to park anywhere. An array of attendants are running bags of food in and out and it is all pretty efficient.
It’s pretty cool watching the ways restaurants are coming up with on the fly to radically adjust their models and keep their doors open. It’s sad that it has to happen but a remarkable show of ingenuity and the potential of the human spirit when so motivated.Report
My boss is all about “chick fil a” customer service. I’ve not personally experienced it as I don’t go to this type of restaurant, but the CS does sound outstanding….and that’s what she drives us to do for our customers.Report
On the occasions when I go, I sit indoors. The people taking orders and working the floor are uniformly cheerful. I suspect that simply being able to wait at a table for someone to bring you your order helps the customers’ attitude all by itself. Unconfirmed but rumored here is that they pay substantially better than other fast food outlets and are more selective about hiring. They certainly seem to have less turnover.Report
Some of Chick-fil-A’s diehards thought that suited them just fine, and happily took the label, along with a variation borrowing that other famous chicken place’s initials and dubbing it “JFC”.
Do they not know what the “F” stands for?Report
They might not.Report
Definitely true, “fried” is a very bad word in a lot of places.
I mean, I just made fried onions for the family last weekend and I had to trick them with the euphemism, Tobacco Onions. I think it worked; they ate them.Report
“Do they not know what the “F” stands for?”
of course they do, you simp. that’s part of the joke. they’re Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid.Report
The thing I always noticed about our local CFA: just how MANY people they have working at any one time. There’s always a mass of kids buzzing about, which is a sharp contrast to the other places where you have to tackle and hogtie someone to get help. It’s what I’ve been referring to as the Best Buy/Sears Conundrum. Sears had almost no associates. Best Buy you get swarmed. Guess which one is in bankruptcy?
The one thing brick-and-mortar stores have to offer is people. Well, until recently.Report
If I were going to start a fast food chain, I would imitate whatever training and management processes they use. I’ve never had a negative experience at a CFA. Occasionally, they’ve mixed up my drink order and have given me sweet tea-yuck-instead of unsweetened tea, but it’s been because the teas were poured in the wrong tanks and not because they weren’t listening (I know; I’m a heretic for my tea drinking, but if I want a bunch of sugar I’ll drink a fishing Coke).Report
Following you off-topic, I learned my reaction to people who drink heavily sweetened or fruit flavored teas from my father: “What’s the matter, don’t you like tea?”Report
For reasons I’ve explained here, I’m very skeptical about how well the employees are actually treated. Still, going there as a customer is a pleasant experience.Report