Brand Killing

It was a fine Saturday evening. I and my friend Sashi decided to watch a movie(London Dreams). We started at 8:10pm and we reached the nearest theater (Fame, Fatima Nagar, Pune) at 8:25pm. We saw a pizza hut near by and decided to have dinner before watching the movie. I went to the ticket queue and he went inside pizza hut to grab a table. I got the ticket and he was standing outside pizza hut. He had just booked a table and our waitlist number was 3. Hm… Okay even if we get a table at 8:35, it would hardly take 15 minutes to eat and anyways our movie was at 9:15. Worth waiting!!

Finally as planned we went in at 8:35. A waiter came to our table with a big grin. And here comes a conversation.

Waiter: Good evening sir! Welcome to pizza hut sir... Sir... Sir bla bla bla sir... (A sir for each sentence. Is this a fast food chain or a swish restaurant??? Anyways I thought the franchise wanted to attract local people who love such hospitality!)

Bhavan: Could you bring an Exotic Pizza and Garlic bread (Of course pizza itself is exotic to us). Also two cokes as soon as possible.

Waiter: Your order would take 20 minutes Sir.

Bhavan: Sorry. Can you please bring it in 5 minutes? We got to rush for a movie

Waiter: Not possible sir… Sir… Sir… Sir… Sir bla bla bla sir...

Sashi was smiling sarcastically… I know the reason for that smile. We many times had conversation about how a manufacturing engineer and a quality engineer would deal things. I also know he will demonstrate the “quality engineer’s” way of dealing.

Sashi: Cancel everything (Just like saying nothing has passed the quality test. Scrap everything). What ever you can bring in 5 minutes, just bring that.

Waiter: So you will be having only two cokes?

I just started laughing usuriously seeing how Sashi’s dealing became a flop! The waiter’s face became pale and to sustain the aura around I told the waiter that you have a great sense of humor! Waiter became very happy. Hm... It’s a curse that men carry! If someone says to a man that he is very humorous he would start jumping with josh to the extremes!!

Bhavan: Please bring us the previous order. But a bit quick! 20minutes is too long!

Sashi was speaking in phone to someone and I was left out with my thoughts. Its obviously not the waiter’s wish to call everyone sir 10 times. Also this hospitality is least expected from a fast food chain. All we need is to get the food in seconds! That’s the basic need and if this franchise is not meeting this expectation what is the use of hospitality. Next time I would prefer Inox to Fame. The reason is because of Mc Donald’s and Central Park near to Inox. If i should have food and if the movie starts in 10 minutes I can go to Mc D or if the movie is after 2 hrs I can spend that time in Central Park (where just to bring the bill, they take minimum 15 minutes). That’s a big positive point which Inox has.

I am not a full supporter for Mc D though. It introduced the 1minute service or free coke deal and this has been a bigger trouble, atleast to me. You either get your order within 1 minute or you stand there for next 5 minutes. If the “turn around time” for your order crosses 1 min, then 2 mins or 10 mins it just costs one coke to the franchise. The waiters will be concentrating on others who’s TAT has not crossed 1 min and you just gotta wait… I wrote this in their feedback form! Also mentioned, the deal has to be reframed as one coke for delay in each minute. Means, if you are waiting for 5 minutes you get 5 cokes :-)


Okay Let us come back to the story in pizza hut. We got the order in less than 10 minutes. Infact the guys who came before us and sitting in the neighborhood were looking at the ceiling still! Our waiter came back with the order and shared a couple of Poor Jokes… I remembered what my friend Bala told!

In this era if you want to be a successful business man, its only possible
through creating an emotional bonding with customers. Technology or innovation
can just bring great business. But sustaining is more on this emotional bonding.
It works well with any living thing for that sake!!

Even my company’s one of the core policies “Integrity” is based on what our customers (mostly US farmers) value more. WOW! I really felt it today. Unexpectedly we just appreciated our waiter’s humor sense and that did create a sense of closeness. He made sure we do not get delayed for our movie!!