Feelings Over Food | Minimising the abuse fast-food workers face.

What is the problem you found?

The problem that we have set out to solve is the fact that fast-food workers face abuse almost daily. Customers are aggressive and managers nor employees know how to deal with this. The surveys conducted during this program showed that a third of teenagers who work in fast food have to deal with aggressive customers. 4/7 people say they have to deal with these customers very often, but rarely ask the manager for help. This may be because majority believe their manager lacks training in this area of communicating. In addition to this, 6/7 do not feel comfortable refusing service if they are being harassed. 

My personal experience as a sales worker. I'm Keely and I have experienced verbal abuse from a customer. I was working drive-through and a customer asked for something that wasn't on our menu. I let her know and suggested something similar. To that she replied, "that wasn't what I asked". We repeated this discussion a few times and I was trying to figure out what she wanted. She then said "never mind" and sped off to the next window. When I tried to ask if she could explain she told me that I didn't know how to do my job, that I was worthless and would never go anywhere. I ended up apologising to her when I shouldn't have.  

What is your opportunity?

How might we protect fast-food workers from abuse and train managers to intervene?

Who is your audience?

Our customers are teenagers who work in fast-food and store managers who are noticing an increase in aggressive behaviour and a lack of suitable communication in these situations.

Some pains of our customer may include:
- experiencing aggression from customers at work
- becoming numb to workplace abuse from customers
- decreased mental well-being
- dreading going to work
- feeling disempowered and upset

Our customers may expereince the following gains after using our product:
- The workplace becomes a more peaceful environment
- Increased well-being
- Looks forward to going to work
- Feels empowered and head in the workplace
- does not experience abuse while at work

What Is Your Solution?

The solution is Feelings Over Food. Our company will place posters in any store warning that aggressive behaviour will not be accepted, there will also be a button implemented where the food is prepared, which can be pressed by a shift manager so that a television screen in the store shows when there is a back-up and the estimated time until the customer will receive their food. The hopes is that the posters and the screen will stop the aggression before it happens.

However, we will also provide sales-workers with communication cards to assist in diffusing the situation, training for managers to intervene if an employee is being abused and a podcast in which stories are shared to spread awareness about the abuse being faced. 

Please see how our idea developed below: 

OUR WHY

 

OUR CUSTOMER

 

OUR USER JOURNEY

 

OUR BUDGET

 

OUR BUSINESS CARDS

 

OUR PLANNING/ DRAFTS

 

OUR PROTOTYPES

Support Required

Connections

Our company would need connections into fast-food companies to investigate if this would be something that would interest them to have in the stores. 
We will also need to connect with design and marketing companies to help us further our prototype. 

Funding

Our company will require funding for high quality printing for posters and communication cards. The podcast would also need funding for quality microphones. 
We are seeking council support to commence with our prototypes. 

Advice

We are seeking advice from other companies that have a similar mission to ours. How can we work together and what are you currently doing? 
We will also need advice from marketing and design teams to help us improve our prototype. 

Development

We would need development support for posters, communication cards and the courses that train managers.