Minding Your Own Brand

Why can’t I get that with whipped cream?

By Dave Lubelczyk

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were on our yearly trip to Nantucket. According to ritual we stopped by our favorite ice cream shop as soon as we got off the boat. My friend asked for whipped cream on his small cup of chocolate ice cream. The clerk proceeded to tell him that “whipped cream only comes with sundaes.” Thinking it was a cost issue, he offered to pay the extra twenty-five cents that they charge to put candy on a cup of ice cream, which he felt would surely cover the cost of a squirt of whipped cream. The clerk refused the offer saying that was the “candy charge” and there is “no way” to charge him for just whipped cream. She went on to say that “the shop policy is that whipped cream can only be put on sundaes.” So in order to get whipped cream. he would have to order a sundae with no hot fudge, no nuts and no cherry.

He settled for his chocolate ice cream without the added calories, but for the rest of the weekend we all had to listen as he told the entire island (or at least the half that would listen) how ridiculous this policy was. Needless to say, we did not pay a visit to that shop on our way back to the boat and it probably won’t be our first stop on the island next year.

Small things can turn a basic interaction into an extraordinary customer experience or a massive disappointment. This story illustrates how a too restrictive policy hurt the clerk’s chance to be extraordinary and ruined any chance of maintaining my friend as an advocate. All too often companies that claim to be creating better and more standardized customer experiences end up micromanaging their way out of customer loyalty by creating inflexible rules and policies.

Honestly, I don’t know why the “no whipped cream” policy was in effect. Maybe it had something to do with inventory control, maybe the clerk didn’t know how to ring it up because it was not a standard sale, or maybe the manager emphasized during training to only put whipped cream on sundaes. Whatever the reason, the clerk didn’t feel empowered to solve the problem and create an extraordinary customer experience and therefore the policy hurt long-term customer loyalty.

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