Thursday, May 8, 2008

Keep your hands where I can see 'em and step away from the Timbits.


In the most recent quarter ending March 30, Tim Horton’s posted a net income of $61.8 Million. Same store sales rose over the same period last year by 3.5%.

Now comes this
news:

Giving a free Timbit to a baby has cost a single mother of four her job.
Nicole Lilliman, 27, was fired yesterday from her Tim Hortons job for giving one of the 16-cent blobs of fried dough to a tot.


One could argue that the reason they made $61.8 million in the first place is because they didn’t give away food. But equally one could argue that the reason same store sales grew is precisely because of people like Ms. Lilliman who make Tim’s patrons want to come back, again and again.

Whichever view one wants to take about Ms. Lilliman’s actions, if I were the CEO of Tim Horton’s I’d be much more concerned about the judgement of a management team that thought making an example over a 16-cent Timbit was worth all the negative press this story would surely get.

2 comments:

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

Well, you'll be glad to know, as I was, that she was rehired, apparently within hours (at a different store owned by the same franchisee).

Also of interest (I thought):

"Tim Hortons does not have a corporate policy governing the giving away of doughnuts, Douglas said, adding that franchise owners are free to set their own policies.

'We're working with the store owner on this policy,' she said, calling Lilliman’s firing 'an overreaction and not appropriate.'"

Canajun said...

LKO:
Thanks for the update. Looks like common sense prevailed after all. Too bad it took the publicity to make it happen.