Part of Lesson Plan: Meeting and Exceeding Customer Needs

Activity Overview / Details

Put students in Pairs.

Hand each student an index card with a fictictious guest who might arrive in our food service establishment. (These are prepared in advance by the teacher and you can write them as they apply to the industry in your class.)

Each card represents one realistic customer profile

• Grumpy teacher needing daily caffeine fix
• Diabetic customer who does not want added sugar – always asks for sugarfree vanilla syrup
• Catering order for 2 dozen assorted baked goods
• Walk-in customer – heard about the business from a friend. Would like something for the morning.
• Regular customer who always wants a protein based product every morning.
• Customer watching weight – wants a low fat, low sugar product.
• Mrs. X – orders the same thing EvERY DAY.
• Substitute teacher – has never seen the menu and has never encountered our business.
• The female PE teacher who orders a very specific regular/decaf coffee drink every day, based on her mood.
• A visiting guest of a teacher. Speaks NO ENGLISH.
• A VIP guest – the visiting WASC committee – using our room for their morning meeting. We have no idea what they want or need.

Give students two minutes to prepare a QUICK scenario - Role Play - an example of how we might FAIL TO MEET THIS GUEST's EXPECTATIONS.  (This is designed to allow students the opportunity to play at failure. Students will usually have a lot of fun with this activity.)  Students share our their responses with the class.

Now hand each pair of students a regular letter size peice of construction paper.  Students work together to list two ways that they will MEET this customer's basic expectations.  Create a visual with words or pictures to share with the class.

Share out with the class.  Encourage students to critique each other's responses.  Correct poor responses.  Praise responses that are appropriate.