No Turn On Red

Some time ago, my girlfriend and I ordered take out food from a national, fast-food restaurant. We drove there and picked up the food, but when we got it home we were not pleased with what we had gotten. When we opened the first food item, we noticed what appeared to be hair on it. I opened up the other item and the chicken, which was used in both dishes, just did not taste right. It may seem trivial now, but decided that we weren’t going to eat the meals we just bought.

I called the restaurant to let them know about the problem. I did this for two reasons. First, I felt as if they should know that there may be a potential problem with the chicken that we were served. My other goal was to see what they would offer me as a resolution to this problem. I was looking for an offer of a refund, but I also expected some sort of concern from their employee.

Instead, the girl who answered the phone acted completely disinterested in what I had to say, quickly rushed me off the phone and never offered me any sort of resolution. I expected she would offer me something - at the very least, I expected that she would offer to put me on the phone with the manager. But nothing.

Maybe I was naive to expect something, anything, but this phone called angered me more.

I took the food and went back to the eatery, where I went up to the counter and explained to the girl there (the same girl who answered the phone) that I was the person who called about the hair in the food and politely requested to speak the manager. The manager came over, spoke to me for a brief second, and then offered to make me new dishes (which I didn’t want) or offered to refund the money. She did this professionally, quickly and offered a great resolution to my problem.

I don’t believe I over-reacted at any point in this, nor do I believe I was unreasonable in expecting some sort of resolution. However, there is only one thing I didn’t do that I wish I had. I wish that I had taken five minutes to write to the parent company to explain to them what happened. I wish I had done this because the company should have known not only how I felt slighted by the girl on the phone, but the company also should have known how well I felt the manager handled the situation. It is a case of a negative experience becoming positive. At the end of all of it, I had a problem and it was resolved well - after a bump in the road.

If I had informed the parent company of what happened, maybe, in the future, the whole thing would have been handled better from the initial phone call. Perhaps the next customer that has a negative experience there isn’t as patient as me. They don’t bother to go back to the store and their story ends on a negative note, never going back to the store again after that phone call.

The reason I share this story now, long after the fact, is because I believe it illustrates some of the points that I touch on in my next post: Five ways you, as a customer, can improve customer service.

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