Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Customers Don’t Like Tears in Their Tacos

A young Mexican in Atlanta provides a gentle reminder of a forgotten business concept: pride in your work.

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I needed to buy a new laptop last night (I ended up with the very loud Sony Viao VGN-S150,) and a client in Atlanta was kind enough to drive me to CompUSA and wait with me while I fiddled through a myriad of laptops with incomprehensible model names. As an aside (I’ll get to Jose, I promise) can I ask why it is that computer manufacturers other than Apple have completely unmemorable names to identify the kind of laptops they sell? There is a reason people aren’t called “MpG-3295”. More on that tomorrow, come to think of it. Anyway, we stopped to get a quick bite to eat at a place that Greg assures me is, despite its humble visage, a testatment to the marvels of Mexican cuisine. He ordered 3 soft tacos with tofu—only in the 2000s—and I ordered 3 with chicken. There is, gentle reader, a quality to good lettuce, that despite bad lighting, causes it to shine like fresh cut grass on a moist spring day. The first thing I noticed, and commented on, was the lettuce in the lettuce bin. It looked crisp, clean, and utterly TV-commercial-like. Jose, a wiry young fellow, who was one of the human assembly line that made the tacos, did the filling and folding. As he finished with Greg’s tofu delight, he paused for a moment, and lifted up the bottom of one of the tacos, staring intently for a moment. He grinned up at me, and said, “It’s torn a little bit.” He proceeded to make a new taco, saying, “Our customers must not have tears in their tacos.” So, what does this have to do with agencies and marketing? Everything. Because clients tend to notice everything. They notice spelling mistakes, verbal snafus, missed deliverables, insincere banter, and even unironed shirts. They’d notice this lnie because of the typo in it. Jose didn’t have to replace the taco—it was a tiny tear, and it would have worked its way into Greg’s stomach without much ado; what I liked about this whole anecdote is that it didn’t make its way down Jose well at all. Sometimes, inspiration comes from the strangest of places. http://www.brutalclarity.com/index.php/28/
 

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