August 20, 2001

The Olive Garden Targets Tap Water & Wins! A certain sister of mine works for an OG, so I get the inside scoop on how they try to manipulate customers into spending more money on things they don't want. Well, manipulate is too strong a word, since it never seems to be anything clever, just instructing their waitstaff to push customers towards desserts or sodas. Often these instructions involve internal sales contests as employee "incentive", so it's more like manipulation of the waitstaff to push on the customers.

It's particularly delightful that this article is an industry article (from Coca-Cola) praising the practice:

When the contest was completed, almost all participating restaurants realized significant increases in beverage sales and reduced levels of tap water incidence - a strong indication that Olive Garden restaurants succeeded in enhancing the customer's dining experience.

The MetaFilter thread on this is entertaining.

comments...

Dan Sanderson, August 20, 2001 2:24 AM:

Coca Cola has removed the web site, but the New York Times noticed in time and wrote up the story.

a certain sister of yours, August 20, 2001 11:12 AM:

Correction; I have not worked at the Olive Garden for a good five months now. I am currently employed at a locally owned restaurant called Tugboat Annie's, where I don't need to upsell because all of our customers are alcoholics and usaully order at least $12.00 in drinks. But you must agree that the war on tap water is worth fighting, you never know what the government's lacing it with for mind control purposes. By the way, my manager at the OG confided in me by sharing a company secret about why it's so important that we sell that glass of wine with dinner. The PR department conducted some surveys and came up with some statistics that show that a customer who has had one or more alcoholic drinks with dinner is more likely to check the "excellent" box in our guest satisfaction survey, thereby leading to the conclusion that customers who have had one drink had a better dining experience. So, next time you turn down alcohol at dinner, or breakfast or lunch for that matter, just remember that you could be enjoying life that much more if you were drunk.