Pop up booth
This is how the pop up booth looked like. It was situated INSIDE The Soup Spoon (Soup Spoon and Handburger are from the same company) and hardly conspicuous at all. Failure #1. Woman in black on the right is the in charge and kept shouting at the poor guys behind the booth, making them really stressed out and also making it really unpleasant for the customers. Failure #2.
So, back to my job as a flyer distributor. This is gonna sound really unethical because I'm badmouthing the company that I worked for but I am just stating the facts. Unlike The Soup Spoon, I think The Handburger will not succeed. This is due to 2 main reasons: Poor management and horrible food.
Poor Management:
The marketing of the pop up booth is horrible. Situated at Changi City Point (nearest mrt: Expo), they got us to distribute flyers at Tampines. This does not seem logical at all, does it? Their justification was that they wanted to catch the crowd that takes the shuttle bus to changi city point. LIKE WTF?! Of the people who are gonna take the shuttle bus, how many will take your flyers? And of the people who take your flyers, how many will be going to changi city point to eat? And of the people who are going changi city point to eat, how many will be going to handburger?! It just didn't make sense AT ALL.
Secondly, the pop up booth can't be seen as I have mentioned earlier. All you see is The Soup Spoon. I could only see it because I was brought there by the person in charged.
Thirdly, the flyers were filled with words! Too bad I did not capture a picture of their flyer. And I also can't find a digital copy of their flyer. Isn't it commonplace for companies to upload digital copies of their flyers to social media such as Facebook so as to get the word around? Obviously The Handburger did not do that. Seriously think they need a new marketing manager.
Fourthly, the "attraction" on their flyer was that the first 30 customers of the day will be able to purchase The Handburger Original (Beef) or Vegetarian option at only $1 instead of $6.80. So not only is their attraction lame, they did not even make the attraction stand out. In fact the whole flyer was just filled with words of the same size. Didn't even highlight the "$1" like I did.
And therein lies the biggest failure. When I was having my break at 11am, I decided to try my luck to see if they still had the $1 burger. Afterall, $1 for a burger seem quite a good steal. To my surprise (and The Handburger's dismay?), I made it for the $1 burger! It was about 11am and they open at 1030am, and yet they had 20 more $1 burgers to go so sales was obviously very slow.
After making payment, I was presented with this buzzer.
Waited awhile and when it buzzed, I went to collect my burger!
My burger came in a takeaway bag even though I said I was dining in. Felt like they were chasing me out of their already very empty shop...either that or it just shows that the staff are poorly trained and can't take orders properly. Note that the shop was almost empty ok...
But anyway, I was still madly excited because I've never tried the handburger before, and I LOVE BURGERS!!! NOM NOM NOM!
So presenting... THE HANDBURGER ORIGINAL:
So it looks not bad. It was a good size, about the size of a mcspicy? The bun was toasted golden brown and although the patty looked a lil flat and dry, I thought it wouldn't be that bad. BUT I WAS WRONG.
What could be worse than a dry patty? Well, A DRY AND SOUR PATTY. The beef was obviously not fresh but it was still edible. As a poor student working for $8/hr, I need to stand for 7.5mins to earn $1 so I could not waste the burger. So what I did was to douse it with ketchup and only then was it barely edible. Apart from the dry and sour patty, the burger had a measly slice of tomato which can't even be seen in the picture because it was so small. Also, the caramelised onions were a nice touch but unfortunately, they were too stingy with it once again. Alas, even the seemingly golden brown bun was a scam. The bun somehow managed to be soft and stale despite looking toasted. I was so disappointed. Even if the burger was permanently priced at $1, I don't think I will buy it. It is THAT BAD. I will choose a mcspicy over this any day. In fact, a mcspicy would taste fresher than this.
What irked me the most was that the woman in charge (that lady in black up there) knew that I was working for the handburger and saw me eating the burger and YET, DID NOT ASK FOR MY FEEDBACK. Seriously, a management that is not humble and not actively seeking for feedback will not succeed. Needless to mention, their staff benefit is probably crap since they have to make me pay to try their burger.
So the original price of the burger is $6.80, $8.80 to make it a meal. But situated in Changi City Point where there is so many other fast food outlets such as Mcdonalds, Carls Junior, Texas Chicken etc., The Handburger is doomed to fail if it does not improve on its food standard.
My advice to everyone out there: DO NOT TRY THE HANDBURGER. IT IS REALLY HORRIBLE AND MCDONALDS IS MORE WORTH IT. SERIOUSLY.
