Appropriate script

As someone who has been required to say, “Thank you for calling, ____, this is Darin, How can I help you?” thousands of times over the course of thousands of phone calls, I can appreciate the finer points of an employee script.

You know, when companies don’t really trust their employees to say the appropriate things, they make up a nice little script and then require that the employees use it.
Stay with me, I am going somewhere…..

For some reason at Taco Bell they have a very bad script writer. I thought it was at one location, specifically the Taco Bell drive up window attendant on Missouri Blvd in JC started acknowledging that a vehicle had approached by saying, “Hi, How are you?”

Now I know that it is at multiple locations.

While this seems like an innocuous statement, it makes absolutely no sense in the context of me driving a vehicle up to a digital order taking machine while reading about my choices of tacos versus chalupas….

Think about it---what is the appropriate response to the questions, “how are you?” Well of course, it is, “I’m good, how are you.” And now your are sharing small talk with a person in a sweaty fast food restaurant when all I really want to do is order a number 1 with a soft taco and a mountain dew and move around to the next window!

For anyone who is in charge of writing scripts for the employees, THINK! What should the girl/guy at the drive up window at Taco Bell say?
How about something like, “Welcome to Taco Bell, may I take your order?”