Well, my wife and I just got back from a church meeting. Before the meeting we decided to go by our local Quiznos Sub for some dinner. For those of you that don’t know, Quiznos is a sub place that is just above McDonalds on the food chain. They have toasted subs and are usually quite tastey. In fact, their slogan is: “MMMMMmmmm…..Toasty”. I much prefer Quiznos to Subway and Blimpie. Tonight, however, was definately enough to turn me off from going to this particular Quiznos forever.

Now, it should be stated that I have had bad expereiences at this Quiznos in the past, but I was hoping that this time would be different. (We were also in a hurry, and didn’t have time to go to the other Quiznos across town). We had some coupons to make the eating as cheap as possible, so we decided to go. I knew that we were in trouble when the sign on the door read: “For Sale, Please contact ***-****”. As soon as we walked in the door there were three workers standing behind the counter talking in a semi-circle, with their backs to us. We told them we had coupons and they said they would be ready to take our order in just a second. What kept them from helping or even talking to us? They had to finish their conversation of course! So after a few minutes, the guy comes to us across the counter and asks: “What can I get you”. I have to repeat my order to him a few times because he is still talking to the other workers, but he finally gets started with my sandwich. At which point he cuts off a piece of my bread and throws it, yeah, I said throws it, at the other employees.

As my sandwich made its way down the line to the cash register, I took a quick restroom break and left Jessa (my wife) to pay. When I get back they inform us that her sandwich is ineligble for the coupons we have. Now, if you’ll recall, we showed the guy at the cash register the coupons as we came in, and he was the same guy who took our orders. We were supposed to pay full price for an item we wouldn’t have ordered had we not had the coupon. Now, either he didn’t remember our coupons because he was talking to his friends, or he just didn’t care enough to tell us until the sandwich was already made. Regardless, instead of giving us the sandwich for the deal, he charged us full price. Now, we all know the guy could have over-ridden the system to give us the coupon deal, but he didn’t. He did, however, create a horrible customer experience that I will remember for a long time.

Don’t do the same to the visitors in your church: make sure that your greeters are talking to visitors more than workers and that your visitors feel cared for. If so, they’ll come back again and again.