Making Every Customer Interaction Great - Even if you're taking burger orders.

A recent Wall Street Journal article chronicled how McDonald's, battling back from recent earnings disappointments, is putting unusual emphasis on a longtime challenge: getting its far-flung workforce to provide service with a smile. The fast-food giant, whose restaurant sales in the U.S. began to slip last year, is pushing franchisees to improve staffing and service amid mounting complaints about rude employees.

This is an ever-relevant topic. How do you get employees to make that customer interaction a great one?

When I took command of USS Benfold, pessimism and negativism ruled the day. If sailors even said hi to me, it was with no enthusiasm at all. It drove me nuts. And if it drove me nuts, what about the people who had to interact with us? They must have dreaded coming to our ship. So I said to the crew, “if you see a visitor come on board this ship, walk up to them, and look them directly in the eye and say, welcome to the 'Best Damn Ship in the Navy'. Can you imagine how people would love doing business with any organization where the employees smiled when they walked in the front door, looked them in the eye and said... "Welcome to the best Damn McDonald’s in the country!!!"

Of course, when we started it … we weren’t the best. But I wanted the crew to know that the only ones keeping us from being the best were ourselves … NOBODY ELSE!!!!