How far can a smile travel? In 1990, the first American customer service driven smile traveled almost 5000 miles, took root, and stayed. With the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow, standard corporate training on how employees can create a successful customer experience was first introduced. Step one? Smile. Where being stoic had been the customer service norm, this newfangled, unprecedented training gave Russian employees and customers an emotional culture never before seen. In the politically tumultuous nineties, the McDonald’s in Moscow became an “island of light and humanity in a dark time.”
