Anne Armstrong is the secret sauce!
When you walk into this little establishment for the first time, two things hit you hard; the tiny size of the place and the amazing smell. As people come up to the “plate” to order, Anne pitches to them one at a time and each customer gets a different conversational fast-ball! She is “on” all the time and the pace at which she can move would make any telemarketer or carnival barker jealous.
She knows you forever if you’ve been there once and is a keeper of details on every customer, to be used when she “ribs” you the next time. As I watch this friendly woman with the bionic wit, I think about the people at the heart of organizations, the “front” people. The first person you meet when you enter any business, the person who puts your tires on the road should be a person like Anne, someone that is uniquely engaged with every customer. I don’t know if you can train people to be like this or if they are born but the concept is worth exploring if we are to keep customers coming back in hard economic times.
As I think about an upcoming trip to Roy’s, I think of the amazing ribs, the smokey smell and what Anne will have to say about my order, my shirt or the friends I brought with me. She makes sure that Roy’s is not just a restaurant, it is an experience. If we are to believe the thinking in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, I know Anne has had it right for a long time!