Customer Service Takes a Licking

Before you order a taco from Taco Bell, you might want to check online to read about the controversy stirred by a photo released by the Consumerist, a blog put out by Consumer Reports. The photo showed a Taco Bell employee licking a stack of unfilled taco shells. Yuck! 

The story of a photo posted on Facebook gone viral was recounted in a USA Today article. The photo was originally posted by the employee on his Facebook page before it was picked up by the blog and then the world. This isn’t the first story of employee angered by angry customers or impossible bosses and who take out their frustrations by spitting in the food, adding insects or other disgusting additives to food before it goes out to the customer. But the stark reality of a photo posted for the world to see was too much.

Taco Bell isn’t unique for this type of employee-sabotage. As the article says, it’s not a brand thing. It’s how employees value the brand and connect their behavior to the brand image. If they don’t feel invested, they don’t care if their actions negatively affect the company. How employees treat the brand has a lot to do with how they feel about how they are treated.

Now that the world has seen how one employee treated the food in a Taco Bell, they want to know what Taco Bell is doing to rectify the situation. While Taco Bell hasn’t revealed if the employee in the photo was fired, the buying public wants to know--and deserves to know--that Taco Bell has taken steps to make sure that unacceptable behavior won’t be tolerated. 

The whole situation wouldn’t have been such a big deal without Facebook and social media’s ability to perform in front of a world audience. Does this kind of thing happen at other fast-food or even fine-dining restaurants? Most likely. What better way to deal with a customer who complains about the food and sends it back than to get revenge by compromising the replacement dish. 

The article suggests the way to solve the problem is by hiring people with integrity and loyalty. That’s difficult to do. You can ask a candidate to tell you about a specific situation where they handled an angry customer. You can request a portfolio of their past work or have them write a short letter to demonstrate their written communication skills. But loyalty and integrity? Some pre-employment test instruments may be able to measure those qualities, like Talent Plus, but those qualities will most likely be measured on the job.   

Maybe the most shocking part of the story is the comfort level of an employee to expose his misdeed to the world. It could be the unreality of social media or the disconnect of an individual with the consequences of an action. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make a buying public skeptical of fast food outlets and the integrity of their product. It may even make an impatient customer waiting for a food order to think twice about complaining for fear she’ll get more than pickles, onions and cheese on her burger. 

Photo Source: MorgueFile