Size ‘em up and Move ‘em down: The Employee Factor

Cold Stone's over sizing is not only available, but unavoidable. Cold Stone has a unique crew member training structure, focused on persuasion and customer service. Through an intensive program, "The Power of Nice," you work on online and paper exercises in sales techniques and reading customer body language.

(* click on the link above to see a portion of the handbook!)

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Here’s a straight snippet from the book:

Size ‘em up and Move ‘em down

"We want to train our customers to stick with the Love Its and Gotta Have Its. Simply ask them if they would prefer a Love It or Gotta Have It size, and point out the cup sizes with your hand. This will draw the customer’s attention to the sizes and will help them make the decision faster.

If they indicate they want a Like It size, use soft sales techniques to convince them to increase the size. For example: “For only a few cents more, you can get almost twice the ice cream, and if you don’t finish it now you can take it home and enjoy it later.”

And they want to hook you for later: "It is not always about the sale today, but about the future sale."

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When I was a crew member, we had incentives with bonuses for the employee who sold the most waffle products or had the highest "Gotta Have it" or "Love it" sales percentage.

Our token phrase: "For only 30 cents more, you can get twice the ice cream!" But do you really want twice the ice cream? Maybe next time you go into a Cold Stone, you'll realize that a flashy song upon check out doesn't change the fact that what you're eating is unhealthy in such large portions and contributes to food waste. Most people don't realize how much up-selling of products is stressed - so much that some customers don't even know a Like it or Kids' size exists!