The Story of How Chick-fil-A Borrowed “My Pleasure” from a Luxury Hotel

On this episode of Our American Stories, the origins of Chick-fil-A’s “my pleasure” catchphrase trace back to 2001. According to Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy, it began when he visited a Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel, co-founded by his friend Horst Schulze. Here's Horst with the story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories and up next
to a story about a founder, and we'd love to
tell founder stories here on the show. We love to
tell stories of people who turn nothing into something. And
here the storyteller is Horse Schultzi, who co founded the
Rich Carlton Hotels in nineteen eighty three here in America.

(00:34):
And this story has a lot to do with service.
It has a lot to do with customers, and it
has to do also with a fellow Atlanta founder, true
At Kathy, the founder of Chick fil A and where
the phrase my pleasure came from.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
We all talk about service. Let me define service for
a moment. It starts to instant you make contact. It
doesn't start as second later. It starts, in fact, within
nine feet. Why because within nine feet you make decisions
about somebody and they make a decision about you. So

(01:12):
it starts with the create welcome, welcome, and then it
continues with complying to the guest wisious. And that complying
is very simply that I'm in that moment. It's not
about me anymore, it's not about my company, It's about
my customer. I'm now here to help that customer to

(01:32):
make it the right decision for him or her. That's
how I'm complying. I'm here to be an assistant to
that guest to make a great decision for themselves. And
then it ends by saying farewell. That is service welcome, comply,
farewell now. And people talk about the credit service, asking

(01:55):
to define it. You haven't even given the thoughts what
it is. That's why don't receive it. They receive it
if somebody happens to if you happen to be lucky
on you, you happen to hit a nice person, not
by the sign of the organization, and that is wrong.
It has to be designed by the organization that there

(02:17):
is service delivery that means attention for the benefit of
our customer. You know my relationship with chick file you know.
And then Cathy, who is of course checkfil is an exception,
exception company. Exceptional people then ask me one day they

(02:38):
have you. He tells the story slightly different. I know
that I'm right how I tell it, but they're very
close to same the two stories. One day asked me
have you been in Chick fil A? I said, sure,
So what do you think? I said, Well, you're the
best of a lousy lot. And he said, what, well,

(02:59):
you're not, but you're better than the rest of them.
And we discussed that, and then of course he asked
me to kind of teach the people and deal with them,
and we did a lot of things together. And one
thing was I had a meeting with his managers, all
his vice presidents in their headquarters talking about verbal how

(03:22):
do you talk to a customer? And first of all,
you should look at them with ten nine feet and
say hello, good morning, welcome. So the behavioral analysts say
that the person relates to you with a mixed decision
where they come, but about three meters nine or ten

(03:43):
feet that's when you make a decision that instant. So
you want to make sure that that instant, a positive decision,
goes into their subconscience. In fact, we have an interesting study.
In the very beginning of cal we had comment cards,
which is not very scientific, but I had about four

(04:05):
hundred thousand when we were dealing with City Power. I
knew DVE power the time very well. He said he
was a step out of only automotive, and we were
the first company that they actually did something with outside
of automotive. I said, well, if I have those four
hundred thousand cards here. I'm being told it's not very

(04:26):
scientific study. But when he said, we're given to me,
we see what we can find, he came back and
said something very interesting here. Whenever the first conduct was good,
that means sales or reservation, doorman, front desk, or bellman.
When that was good, never ever did a complain follow

(04:51):
Never ever, whenever there was one negative in the first conduct,
always other complaints followed. So with other words, you can
put people into a subconscious positive if the first contact
immediately it happens to be well. And nine feet is
very important because that's when the decision is being made subconsciously,

(05:13):
subconscious stronger than conscience. So it's a very important moment.
So we taught from there on, whatever you're doing within
nine feet, you look at the customer and say, well,
come undone, and eliminate. In our case, we said eliminate
words like high, because I want to tell the customer

(05:35):
immediately you're important to us. If I say high, I'm
saying we are equal. If I'm saying welcome, sir, welcome,
I'm saying you're important to us. And I am very professional.
I'm giving two messages here, which creates trust. So and
then of course we taught our people to eliminate two

(05:56):
more words. Don't ever say folks, guys, et cetera, and
don't say okay in our case, say I'm delighted to
or it's my pleasure. So right away, this kid that
I hid from Inner City becomes a very elegant young

(06:19):
man that we put in the credit uniform credit because
if I hired that kid, he now the next day
is facing the chair of the board of the Bank
of England. I'm going to make sure that interaction happens
right if elimited those three things, high or whatever, dude, guys,

(06:41):
folks and okay, Now all of a sudden there's a
very elegant young man there. So I was explaining that
to Chick fil A and said, now you have to
eliminate Okay, we use my pleasure, and I guess and

(07:02):
I think this is wrong for your market segment. Let's
find a different word. And we were everybody agreed it
was not the right word for Chick fil A. My
pleasure was too fancy, and we kind of discussed it
when suddenly in the back of the room somebody raised
their finger and said I like my pleasure, which was true.

(07:28):
Who the owner, the founder, this great gentleman. I like
my pleasure, I said, yeah, yeah, but you know, but
it is too sophisticated for Chick fil A, mister Kathy,
that was true, Kathy, it is too too sophisticated. It
you should he said, I like it. That ended the discussion.

(07:52):
By the way, guess what they're saying. They're saying my pleasure,
you know. And and so and implemented some other criteria
of service, which Dan will tell anybody that I was
successful to help them with. Now, they didn't become an
exceptional company because of me, but those are the little

(08:13):
things that I helped them help them with, including my
pleasure thing which they became famous for. I was wrong,
and now I didn't tell them to use my pleasure.
I was against it.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
So anyway, And a terrific job on the editing and
storytelling by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Horace
Shultzy as always for sharing his stories with us. And
it's not just a story, we have a bunch by horse,
because well what a storyteller he is, and what wisdom
he has. And by the way, what a thing to
know that it all starts in that very first contact.

(08:48):
And if you've ever been to a Rich Carlton, it's
different than the other hotels. Impeccably dressed, alert, they greet
you from far away, it's always welcome, and they're different
in every contact throughout the organization. And we can all
be different, and we can all be better versions of ourselves.
And what a story about my pleasure and where it

(09:08):
came from? Just beautiful storytelling. Go to more of Horse's
work on Ouramerican stories dot com. His book is called Excellencewinds,
A no nonsense guide to becoming the best in a
world of compromise. The story of Where My Pleasure came
from Here on our American Stories