One famous scene from the movie Five Easy Pieces shows Jack Nicholson ordering a side of whole-wheat toast with his omelet at a diner. He’s then informed that the system doesn’t allow sides of toast. So he orders a chicken salad sandwich on whole-wheat toast—without butter, lettuce, mayonnaise, and chicken.

Nearly everyone recognizes what’s wrong with the “system” in this scenario—the customer doesn’t easily get what he wants. But the traditional approach to “fixing” this might be to simply add more options for what the customer might want. That change would impact the diner’s ordering system, the inventory needed in the kitchen, and even how the kitchen staff cooks. So sometimes it’s easier to simply say, “The system doesn’t work that way,” or, “No substitutions allowed.”

In today’s world, Jack Nicholson’s character could easily gripe on Yelp that the diner doesn’t really cater to its customers, or is inflexible, or is just not worth going to. That’s clearly not a positive outcome for the business.

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