Forget the Turtles, its PEOPLE all the way down, and up.

I’m baffled… If I go to the Tim Hortons corporate site I read the following…

“The Tim Horton Children’s Foundation was established in 1974 by Ron Joyce, Co-Founder of the Tim Hortons chain, to honour Tim Horton’s love for children and his desire to help those less fortunate.”

And then I’m forced to contrast THAT worthy value statement with the article in today’s Toronto Star, where one of their employees in London, Ont is FIRED for handing a toddler a single Timbit…

Has Tim Hortons lost its mind?

Folks? From a marketing perspective alone this has to be one of the most incompetent management moves I’ve read about in a long long time. I don’t CARE if they have a corporate ‘policy’ against ‘theft’ – this isn’t THEFT, it’s called ‘Customer service’ and it’s the type of action that management should encourage in their employees. Instead she gets fired? For giving a customer a $0.16 Timbit? They put a person’s livelihood at risk for a Timbit???? Good grief.

It’s possible to try and condone, and even support the manager’s actions by pointing to the ‘policy’ and stating “The employee took a Timbit. She didn’t pay for it. It’s theft.” But when it comes to the negative PR? This is an unmitigated and totally unnecessary, disaster.

I sometimes wonder if the corporate world has forgotten what the term ‘customer service’ means anymore. It means treating customers as if you valued them. Handing a child a Timbit will likely result in the parent feeling grateful and spending a few extra dollars in the store. It’ll certainly prompt them to return to the store from time to time.

Be prepared for a backlash on this one. The best thing Tim Hortons could possibly do, is immediately re-instate the employee with a public apology and hold a ‘free Timbit’ for toddlers policy. If anyone should be fired, it should be the three managers involved in this PR fiasco.

Updated: 3:22pm May 8th 2008 same day the story broke:

Well, I tip my hat to Tim Hortons – common sense has won the day. The employee was rehired and is now working at another store. Full story here.

Making Pigs Fly

You’ll see it when you believe it! — that might sound like a snippet from some corny motivational keynote presentation, but never-the-less it contains more than just a few grains of truth. Sometimes building the future requires nothing more than simply believing it will happen. It’s called a self fulfilling prophecy or the Pygmalion effect.

Perhaps the best example is a run on a bank. If enough people believe a bank is going to fail, then it fails. A bank is a fragile financial balancing act; supported primarily by the blind trust of the depositors. Remove that trust and it collapses under the weight of massed withdrawal slips.

Sell them what they want to buy!

Business has only two basic functions,
marketing and innovation.
Peter Drucker

The other day a waiter asked me what I wanted for dessert. Since I have a sweet tooth, and there are no calories in Apple Pie, I ordered some. “Sorry” the waiter replied, “Everybody orders that, but we don’t sell it.”

My response to this unusual statement was a burst of laughter. I always laugh when I hear something funny. I asked him if he heard what he had said. He looked puzzled and asked me what I meant.