I’m a constant frequenter of the Panera Bread in Manchester, NH for several reasons including: free wifi (I’m here now writing this post), great food, and the complete absence of a quality coffee retailer in the vicinity of my apartment. Having been born and raised in San Diego, an employee of both Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Starbucks, and a general aficionado of all things caffeinated, I’ve become accustomed, spoiled no doubt, to a certain type of coffee experience.

I expect my coffee house to know my name because a. I made it a point to learn names and start conversations when I was in the biz and b. I get coffee from the same place every single day and I know I’m not unrecognizable given that I order soy lattes extra hot in the land of whole milk and cream.

Panera is failing me, and countless others that I hear complain, when it comes to ease of ordering and customer service. The problem starts when you enter the door – there’s two separate counters and no signs indicating that one counter and the accompanying registers serves the bakery and the other counter with more registers serves the patrons ordering lunch. Actually there is a sign over the lunch registers that reads, “Place Order Here.”

The question then becomes where do I stand in line?

At first I assumed that everyone should stand in one line, the lunch line, regardless of type of food being ordered. I made this assumption because that’s where everyone seemed to be lined up. I, like most people, tend to follow the crowd when I’m in unfamiliar situations. It was brought to my attention, however, that if I was ordering pastries, coffee, and breakfast items that I should stand in the shorter bakery line. Okay I guess this makes sense. Yet when I stand in this line during the lunch hours, the guests in the lunch line are audibly confused as to why us bakery patrons are being helped before them. Things get even more chaotic when the bakery staff start helping the lunch patrons and completely ignore the bakery patrons who come in during this mess.

Panera Tip: Don’t make your customers guess. Tell them where to go.

To make matters worse, by the time you figure out what line to stand in and you actually get up to a register the customer service staff is confused, disoriented, and rude. There have been a number of times when they’ve actually walked away from the register after beckoning me over. Mid-order I’ve had staff members disappear, start talking to other staff members, or simply not listen to what I’m trying to order. Normally I’m very forgiving if this a one time occurrence, but as a former manager it’s simply unacceptable to have the same consistently bad experience.

Panera Tip: Customer confusion leads to general chaos. Either eliminate the chaos or educate your employees on how to handle it better.

Now I’ve become so accustomed to something going wrong that I, as a customer, come in angry and ready for a fight. I’ve become the angry disgruntled customer that I always tried to win over when I was on the other side of the counter. I’m only coming to Panera because my options are limited and they happen to have an amazing Cinnamon Crunch bagel with decadent reduced-fat Hazlenut cream cheese. But I’ll forgo this bad-ass bagel the minute the Starbucks two blocks away actually opens. I’ll pay for my internet access in exchange for a consistently high quality beverage and a milieu that makes me calm (not angry).

So Panera, let me tell you how you can win me back and eliminate some of this mess:

1. Review the first two tips above and come up with an action plan to address them.
2. Pick a stance and stick to it. Either one ostentatiously marked line that serves all registers or two demarcated lines that serve just one function. Both of these options can be accomplished very easily.
3. Train your managers to develop a rush hour strategy. Chaos starts at the top and is inherited by everyone else in close proximity. When I was in charge, my strategy was very simple, put the stronger staff in the more noticeable areas. Then I would communicate the role that each staff member would play at the start of their shift, making it that much easier for everyone to feel prepared to handle chaos in a calm fashion.
4. Recognize and reward great customer service.
5. Pay attention to frustrated customers. Listen to them. Make them feel heard. Follow through and do right by them, whether that means comping their meal, giving them a coupon for a free meal on their next visit, or just acknowledging that you messed up.

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