Sep 14, 2004

take this niche and shove it

Coldstone Creamery.

They make--no, shape--no, craft--superb ice cream combinations. Their portions are gluttonously large. Their shops are clean, visually appealing, and often crowded; word gets around. And their employees are friendly.

Too friendly.

Scary friendly.

They're trained to shout a "Welcome to Coldstone!" any time the door jangles open, quicker than Pavlov's dog in a clock shop. They ask you if you've been to Coldstone before (if you haven't, just say you have) and are quick to thrust a sample of rich, velvety ice cream in your face should you lean too close to any particular variety. Every sentence is spoken with exclamation points, as if being welcoming means shouting loud enough for Grandma to hear. You wonder if their bosses make them stuff their ears with wax and pin their cheeks back in permanent grins.

When you finally order, after minutes of scanning the daunting menu, and, if you should be so kind, leave a small tip, how are you rewarded? Why, with song. That's right: the whole crew sings some inane song about how Tipping is so great! Thanks for the tip! We love to sing! Coldstone Creamery owns our souls!

Coldstone's intentions are good. They have bland Baskin Robbins to contend with, an industry juggernaut. They know that having a slightly different sort of product just isn't enough. People come back for good ice cream, sure, but they won't become addicted if they're served by zombies. So Coldstone makes their employees turn on faucets of charm.

The effect, though, is more like being sprayed with a fire hose. No one likes being shouted at, even if the shouter is smiling. No one likes having their tip become the center of public attention. (Especially not those who tip poorly.) And no one, deep down, likes watching those hapless employees humiliate themselves for small change.

I have nothing but pity for Coldstone's drones. Many of them are young, adolescents even, and they're learning an early hard lesson about corporate idiocy that will soon turn them into Tyler Durdens. I know their pain; I've had to wear a uniform to work, hold a clipboard as I walked the floor, welcome every customer, push extended warranties nobody really wanted, keep pushing extended warranties, beg and plead for people to buy extended warranties, etc., etc. (I worked at Circuit City back in the good old days, when they paid commission, so you had to know at least a smidgen about your product to succeed.)

No one at Starbucks sings for a tip. No one at McDonalds welcomes you to the store. No one at Walmart will help you with anything, really.

Cut the crap, Coldstone. You don't need it. Your ice cream is good enough. Really. No, really.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"No one likes having their tip become the center of public attention. (Especially not those who tip poorly.) And no one, deep down, likes watching those hapless employees humiliate themselves for small change."

Actually I work at Coldstone Creamery in Richmond, Va... we love the tips. Why? because its extra cash! Who doesn't love extra cash? Also, singing is not humiliating at all. We love to sing as long as there are people to sing with... We hate singing alone though... The only thing we hate is when people walk in and get a ton of samples, or a kids creation (1 scoop of icecream) for 1.80+tax (11%)=2.00... that really pisses us off. Or, when we make a bucket and they don't tip.

"No one at Walmart will help you with anything, really."

I used to work at Walmart in Hinesville, Ga. I worked in toys during x-mas and cartpusher after x-mas... we love to help people, but its hard when people let their stupid kids run loose. If it was legal, i would handcuff any loose kid running around the store and put them in a jail cell in the front of the store until their parent(s) came and got them... thats also how kids are stolen, people do not want to deal with their stupid kids who do not know how to behave.

"Cut the crap, Coldstone. You don't need it. Your ice cream is good enough. Really. No, really."

We know it is, but we get crap tips if we aren't jolly. Believe me, I have tried. If you aren't happy and helpful, the people could care less about giving you extra cash. If you are friendly and helpful about satisfying their taste buds... then a lot more people will give ya an extra tip.

Jim Anderson said...

Don't take my Walmart comments too seriously; I overloaded on snark the day I wrote this. But I stand by all my comments about corporate nonsense and the god-awful tip songs. I haven't been back to Coldstone in a long, long time.

You don't have to sing to be friendly. Smiling, sounding genuinely happy--those will bring in the cash just as much as annoying corporate anthems.

Jim Anderson said...

'Cause you know I base all my opinions on what the majority finds appropriate.

Anonymous said...

I work at a Cold Stone in Alaska and I love singing. It's funny to watch our customers laugh at us because they think we're embarressing ourselves. we're not. Cold stone is about the experience. we love singing

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! There are cold stones in Alaska?! Isn't that metorologyically redundant?

Anonymous said...

I was supposed to have a Coldstone audition later today. They didn't tell me anything about it, other than plan on being there for "a couple of hours..." I thought it'd just be like an interview- until I searched "coldstone audtion" on Google. Singing? Charades? Making up skits? I've been searching for a part-time job for 9 months, and this is the closest I've been to landing one, but I can't do it. I'm not gonna be paid minimum wage to publicly humiliate myself on a daily bases. Ugh.