Lakota's Philosophy

(Policies and Procedures)

OUR GUESTS:

Lakota's Customer Service Standards...

Lakota's customers should always receive the following:

1. Quick recognition...always be aware of the register area. If you have a line and someone looks impatient, say hello to them and tell them you'll be right with them. The wait doesn't seem near as long if your presence has been acknowledged.

2. A warm smile and greeting...(even if you're feeling a bit grumpy)

3. An AMAZING cup of coffee, specialty coffee drink, or other food or pastry...(and service with a smile, even if they order six ice-cream drinks!)

4. The answers to all of their questions, to the best of your ability; If you don't know, refer them to someone who does, if possible.

5. Be sure to thank them for their business. They don't have to come here.

NOTE: If you fail to be thankful when someone tips you, you're seriously shooting yourself AND your co-worker in the foot. Most people love to tip if they feel appreciated. If they don't, they won't! Do you know how much one great tipping customer can be worth to you in a years time? It would be well worth your while to do the math.

ABOVE ALL, PLEASE TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS !!!

Please trust me when I tell you, our sincere efforts to please our guests and wholesale customers will get noticed. It can definitely spell the difference between success and failure. Without our happy customers we are all job hunting. Please make the habit of going the extra mile to keep them satisfied. When you do, you'll find yourself more satisfied too.

Our consistent objective here is to solve any customer problem in a friendly and efficient manner, resulting in the continued, long term patronage of that customer. Repeat business and positive word of mouth is the life blood of Lakota.

One disappointed or angry customer can cost you that sale and many others from the same person and all of his people that he discourages from coming in. It can literally mean thousands of dollars in lost revenue over time, that would pay your check and put cash tips in your shift fund.

Remember: T I P S...To Insure Proper Service!

NOTE: It is possible to be too helpful. Please don't smother your guests. Have you ever been served by someone who was so overly helpful and ridiculously happy, they reminded you of a Disney cartoon character? Didn't you just wanna slap-em? (Unless you're Amy Adams!) Be accommodating but use common sense. Try to be sensitive to the moods of our guests and treat them accordingly.

YOUR FELLOW WORKERS

Please treat every member of the staff with the same respect you reserve for yourself, whether they deserve it or not. Fairness, tolerance, patience, .... well, you get the idea. Just be nice.

If you have something unpleasant to say, say it to the person you have the problem with, not everyone else. (that is, after you've thought out the nicest way to handle it)

For instance, timing is important: Please don't let something stew for three or four days and then have a psychotic episode with this person when they are just starting their shift and you're going for an after shift beer. Remember what it's like to work when your upset.

All I'm saying here is bite your tongue and wait for an appropriate time. Maybe better yet, get a second opinion from your manager or shift leader and maybe you won't have to handle it at all. By all means, if the problem seems too big then take it to management and we will deal with it. Regardless, use your head and wait until you are not upset to work out problems with co-workers.

THINGS WE JUST CAN'T DO (Intolerables)

1. SUBSTANCE ABUSE - The use of drugs or alcohol on the job is of course, a good way to get fired immediately. Please come to work clean and sober and stay that way. Coming to work hungover day after day and letting your co-workers pick up the slack is also an effective way to find yourself job hunting. Oh, and for crying out loud, please don't party yourself into oblivion when you have an opening shift the next morning...DUH!

2. NO SHOW, NO CALL, NO WAY! - All I can say is your alibi better be rock solid. Excessive tardiness is bad news for everyone as well. Being at work ten or fifteen minutes early is a great rule of thumb. Remember what it's like to watch the end of your shift come and go because your relief is late or MIA.

NOTE: Please remember - being ignorant of, or misreading your schedule is no excuse for missing a shift, so please don't bother using that one. Knowing your schedule is your responsibility. We simply must have a reliable crew in order to stay in business.

3. DISHONESTY - Taking products home without first paying for them or pocketing cash out of the register? Well folks, no matter how you slice it, that's stealing. Please don't. Honesty pays much greater dividends anyway. Be honest with yourself, your management, your customers, and your co-workers. EVERYONE WINS!

NOTE: Effective immediately and forevermore, you must get a receipt for any drink and/or food order and place it in plain sight at whatever table you take. DO NOT ring up your own purchase or get your own pay-out. Have an on-duty barista do it for you. If you are working, have your co-worker ring up your purchase so that there are always two people involved in every transaction. That way there is never any question about whether or not you paid. The only exception to this rule are members of the DuCharme family.

4. POOR TREATMENT - of guests or other persons that we do business with as well as co-workers and Management. This goes back to our favorite rule of thumb - just be nice. Practice being the kind of person that is nice and calm, even in the face of adversity, especially if you're not. Please don't argue with an irate customer - get a shift leader or manager if possible.

NOTE: If for whatever reason... you decide to send one of our customers screaming out the door, never to return... Don't Get Caught.

5. FAILING AT TEAMWORK - We are all on stage. How we perform together determines our overall success. Lets go for an ovation! If you don't work well with people then you need to work solitary grave yard shifts and.... well.... we don't have them.

6. CONSISTENTLY IGNORING OUR DRESS CODE -

DRESS CODE 9TH STREET:

Our dress code at the downtown store is very easy, but we do have some guidelines and they will be respected, one way or another.

You may wear jeans but we want them to be clean and whole (not hole). Please don’t show up in jeans that are more skin than jeans! (No holes is best...) Espresso does stain so a really nice blouse would probably be a mistake unless you wear an apron.

Please, please don't show up looking like something the cat dragged in, wearing clothes you found somewhere in your sofa. Coming in late, with your hair plastered to one side of your head and pillow creases still in your face is a dead give away. You may think I'm just being silly but we've actually seen it!

Ladies, (oh & men too!) let’s not be too revealing O.K.? Having your rippling abs showing is O.K. somewhere else but it’s not appropriate (or even safe) here. Please, no arm pit hair via tank tops. We would like you to wear a belt. Your attire should leave you free to work without your pants falling down around your ankles!

It is a health code violation to wear open toed shoes. Please don't. Oh, and please bathe more than once a week whether you need it or not.

The bottom line as always: Dress in a way that is fun for you but still professional. You are neat and clean, and if anyone can smell you, it's because you smell really good (Sarah)! Your hair is well groomed, blah, blah, etc. You know the drill!

Fair warning: Failure to observe our easy dress code will lead to a stricter one in the future.

DRESS CODE UNIVERSITY:

We are required to wear khaki pants and a Lakota Logo shirt at all times at the University Kiosk. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Your hair should be up and you must have a clean, professional look. You cannot have metal in your face (ears only) or visible tattoos. Your mentality should be that you are working for the hospital, not Lakota. What I'm saying here is that we must follow the same rules that the hospital staff follows.

NOTE: Adhering to the dress code at the University of Missouri Hospital kiosk has become absolutely mandatory. The kiosk at the hospital is of tremendous importance to all of us.

Our staff at the University kiosk is relatively unsupervised at night (they think!) which leads some to believe its alright to slack on the dress code. How do we know this? Because the hospital is full of sneaky little tattle-tales! Please adhere to the dress code at all times. We'll hear about it if you don't.

The dress code at the University is required by contract. Therefore, ignoring this simple, easy dress code puts our contract at risk, and has (by necessity) become grounds for dismissal.

3 Strikes - You're Out

This is our approach to breaches in our agreement outside of the INTOLERABLES above that can be grounds for immediate dismissal.

Ignoring our rather easy system of policies and procedures will get you "called onto the carpet" and we will have a chat about what happened. If there is simply no excuse for it then a report of the incident will be filed in your employee folder. This is your first strike.

You will be allowed one more "incident" after that, and the process will be repeated. This is strike two.

If this happens a third time, we will probably need to part ways. Of course, there will be a discussion about the third strike to be certain that you are getting fair treatment.

Skip, Deb, Andrew, and I really don't care much for the whole corporate style disciplinary thing. As a matter of fact, I think all four of us have a bit of a rebellious streak that makes this section kind of distasteful for us, however, we do feel that better training will achieve our real goal of seldom (if ever) having to use this system.

We believe that good training can create a strong awareness of what's expected here so that we don't have to let people go. I've never known a manager yet, that enjoyed firing people, even when they deserved it.

This system is simple, direct, and hopefully fair, but its real purpose is to protect our excellent staff from the few who will inevitably say all the right things to get hired and then proceed to piss everyone off every day. We've put up with this in the past, but no more. So, if you aggravate your fellow workers on a regular basis, you need to know that your time here is short.

This will also help to remind some of our valuable veterans that they need to keep setting the example. When you've been around for awhile it's easy to get lazy.

Our veterans are our most valuable people and our plan for the near future is to be able to pay you better and provide some benefits. Make sure that you continue to support us so that we can accomplish that goal as quickly as possible.

This place is fun, but it's a LOT of work and we can't allow slackers to ruin the work environment for everyone else. This system will help us rid ourselves of those types before too much damage can be done.

Please don't slack!

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