When eating/shopping out and the store/restaurant make a mistake what do you do?

[superjaz]

So I have phenomenally bad luck when it comes to eating out (and buying stuff some times)

It doesn't matter if its a nice restaurant or a fast food place, if in a group, my order/service is going to be messed up. Here are just a few examples

raw burger, they made me a new one and it was burnt,  hair under food, ice cold raw steak (asked for medium) they cooked it more and was burnt, a steak that was raw yet tasted burnt, given coconut shrimp instead of beer batter (I am allergic to coconut) my face started to swell, had a waitress order a different entree then what I asked, cold toasted bagel, my food never came, terrible service for my brothers birthday dinner out and was birthday snubbed.

With shopping I have started couponing and I always check with customer service if I have any questions on policy and shop then go to the register only to be told I was misinformed after waiting to be helped.

I would like to point out when dealing with these things I am always polite and speak in a calm voice, never yell or losing my temper.

So

I used to take a "its not you its me" approach when this happened, I understand accidents happen and such.
I am laid off right now and don't eat out much.  I have noticed because of this I am less lenient and easy going as I once was.  If something happens and I am not happy by how its been taken care of by staff, I will just email customer service later.

What I am wondering how do you guys handle this?  Just take service as it comes? call management? never go there again?

[DancingTofu]

I ask whomever made the mistake to amend it politely.  Most food service establishments have really rigorous customer service standards and low-level employees are usually more than eager to fix their mistakes, and usually throw in a bonus so you won't file a complaint.  If you're not satisfied with how they address your issue, start climbing up the chain of command with complaints.  File a polite complain to the management first.  If you're not satisfied with their work, contact the regional manager (for chains) or owner (for privately owned restaurants).

People in service industries know that poor customer service means they lose income (if they're higher up) or employment (if they're not).  Being polite but clear about your expectations is always your best bet.  If they try to fix your order and fail multiple times, I'd say file a complaint and don't go back.  Some places just don't have good cooks/servers and no amount of complaining will fix that.  Servers rely primarily on tips for income, so if you have a bad server, the most socially appropriate way to let them know they did a bad job is to leave a small tip.  5-10% says "Could have done better".  <5% says "bad service".  1 cent is the commonly accepted means of saying "your service was terrible".  Generally though, if a server is polite you should stick with a 15-20% tip, and sometimes you might want to make sure to give the tip directly to the server if their service was good but the cooks were clearly messing up your order.

[7thRingOfSkittles]

I tend to be really polite, but firm. If I'm paying their wages (which essentially, we are) then I deserve decent food and good service.

I'm never rude, but if they mess up more than three times with my food and I haven't ordered any other food or I'm not with friends, I'll just walk out. If I'm with friends and I've ordered food, I'll ask them to either waiver my order or I'll get a new dish and expect my old dish to be comped.

Sadly, as someone who was raised with a mother who's been in the restaurant business since SHE was a child, I've noticed expectations between both consumer and service have dropped. Consumers no longer expect that if they don't enjoy their meal or something is wrong with it, such as burnt food, over salted food, cold food or such, that they will be compensated (not just for a minor mistake like a slightly under cooked steak, but for something serious and/or repeated mistakes) or even given something like a 20% off coupon to encourage you to return. Instead your kind of just like "Meh." And service don't think they have to treat customers right anymore, even though it's their job.

  Sadness at most restaurants nowadays.

[superjaz]

Yesterday was full of fail.  I had gone to kmart (first mistake) because they said there were going to have a promotion to double the value of manufactures coupons up to .99 cents.  I made sure to go by customer service to check to see if there were any details or info I needed to know and was told yup increase coupon value by .99.
Shopped for an hour (I have lots of coupons, hobby now and since laid off besides job hunting its a way to fill time)
then went to check out and some worked some didn't, waited a half hour for a higher up to come help, tell me that customer service had neglected to tell me while yes they will increase up to .99, any coupon over .99 wouldn't double, which would have saved me a lot of time.  I wasn't happy, and I told that to them (not at cashier, not her fault) All the lady said was sorry and would let them know.
I pick out what I want only getting things that worked, and it doesn't work again, another guy came, (I thought was manager) fixed it and I asked if I could get the discount on my other items, he gave me the verbal run around and walked away with out answering me. 
the cashier told me that wasn't the manager, and gave me his number and showed me where to contact.  I went home and called and told him my side (since he had heard about it) he started to say he wished that had just overided the price and I say "I asked if they could"

After that I went to taco bell and had the worst service ever, when it was my turn the cashier left the register, prepped a drink for another person(not mad about that, understandable they ordered before me) then went back to the register only to go around the counter, to the trash to bus a single tray there, take it to the kitchen, repour the drink because it filled too much since she left it then help me saying sorry for the wait which I don't believe a bit.  Only thing kept me in there was 1, I had to eat (baby was like grr food), 2 I wanted the receipt to complain.  when I got it I found out the cashier was the store manager listed to call about comments!

Kmart ended better I was able to go this morning and purchase the things I had with the discount promised, wouldnt have bothered but free is free, and thats why I know have 7 of these


razors that were free (4off coupon=.99 promotion)

[reppy]

I've never really had an issue.  I dunno.  I'm pretty chillax, so maybe I don't notice things that other people do.  If anything, I usually get people giving me free food.  I've had mess-ups but I usually don't care enough to say anything, or if I do, it is fixed right away.

I've found hair in my food but was never upset enough to do anything.  Usually just kept on eating my meal.  It's freaking hair and every person has like a million of 'em and guess what?  One of 'em ended up on your plate.  Not the end of the world, IMO.

[@random]

Yesterday was full of fail.  I had gone to kmart (first mistake) because they said there were going to have a promotion to double the value of manufactures coupons up to .99 cents.  I made sure to go by customer service to check to see if there were any details or info I needed to know and was told yup increase coupon value by .99.
Shopped for an hour (I have lots of coupons, hobby now and since laid off besides job hunting its a way to fill time)
then went to check out and some worked some didn't, waited a half hour for a higher up to come help, tell me that customer service had neglected to tell me while yes they will increase up to .99, any coupon over .99 wouldn't double, which would have saved me a lot of time.  I wasn't happy, and I told that to them (not at cashier, not her fault) All the lady said was sorry and would let them know.
I pick out what I want only getting things that worked, and it doesn't work again, another guy came, (I thought was manager) fixed it and I asked if I could get the discount on my other items, he gave me the verbal run around and walked away with out answering me.  
the cashier told me that wasn't the manager, and gave me his number and showed me where to contact.  I went home and called and told him my side (since he had heard about it) he started to say he wished that had just overided the price and I say "I asked if they could"

I'm not sure if I'm misreading this. Do you mean that the special and the customer service people said that they would double coupons up to 99 cents, but they should have been more explicitly clear that they wouldn't double coupons over 99 cents?

To be honest... if this is the case, I don't think it would really be fair to say that the misunderstanding is their fault.* Also, the manager saying he would have just done it anyway doesn't necessarily imply fault. Managers are trained to give customers whatever they want if doing so will prevent a scene and/or spending a lot of time in order to save a small amount of money. (The term I've heard most often is "damage control".)


_{* Actually, I don't think fault per se really matters in this situation - it's just a misunderstanding to be cleared up.}

[superjaz]

I'm not sure if I'm misreading this. Do you mean that the special and the customer service people said that they would double coupons up to 99 cents, but they should have been more explicitly clear that they wouldn't double coupons over 99 cents?
[/quote]

No explicitly needed, just clear because I asked them if it did.
Like if you had a menu and ordered a $15 entree, and they gave it to you, you want to be charged  $15, not $20 (also has happened)
I agree that its a misunderstanding, when talking to the manager he told me the person at customer service wasn't suppose to be stationed there. Also partly corporate (I was told) for not giving much notice. Neither the customer service person nor any other employee (not counting 2 the people the cashier called to the register to help figure it out) had been told about the promotion.  Deals/coupons/specials often have fine print and exceptions different stores, which is why first thing I did was go to the customer service and asking questions about the promotion and him calling some one else and getting incorrect information.  In the Kmart office they had a print out about their stores specific policy, and had that been at customer service, none of this would have happened, it was brought up by the 3rd person trying to help me.

Putting a lot on customer service, but every store was handling the promotion a bit differently I know some one who had no trouble at their kmart getting 1.00 off coupons doubled by .99 cents.  Other stores in Oregon didn't participate at all.  

Also couponin FYI: Safeway will double manufactures coupons by .50cents (unless it says on coupon no doubling) and if the coupon is over that in value, they will take off .50cents so a $1 manufactures coupon =$1.50 in saving up to 4 a transaction per family per day-
Albertsons occasionally has "Twice the Value" coupons in the Sunday paper, double up to a $1 and only on coupons $1 and under.

[MiriaRose]

I flag down the waitress and explain the problem. If they refuse to stop for me, then I'll go to the host. If the problem still isn't fixed, I tip a penny. Message delivered: A tip, but extremely low and gets the point across that that was awful service.

I know how important tips are (my dad is a chauffeur), so that knowledge helps with dealing with awful service.

[@random]

^^ That is different... I had misunderstood and thought perhaps you meant the full value should have been doubled. Doubling 99 cents' worth of the coupon would be the intuitively correct thing to do, and it sounds like that's what you were told.

Unfortunately, sometimes often the people who code registers at the corporate level think only in terms of exactly what they're told, and don't allow for possibilities that fall outside their programming. More unfortunately, people at the retail level often have exactly the same problem. In my limited experience, it seems as though corporations are trying to get rid of people with experience who can think for themselves (too expensive and they keep asking embarrassing questions), then replace them with minimum-wage people who are only allowed to do what the smart machine tells them to do.

[Dubaby]

Unfortunately, sometimes often the people who code registers at the corporate level think only in terms of exactly what they're told, and don't allow for possibilities that fall outside their programming.

Thank you for understanding this!!! I work at a fast food establishment and I can't tell you how many times I've been yelled at because a coupon would only work one specific way (ex. can't upgrade a free drink coupon to a medium and pay the difference because the REGISTER won't recognize it....) Also as far as differences between various stores of the same company, a lot of times corporate will decide (almost on a whim,) to change certain regulations and guidelines on pretty much a weekly basis. It can be hard to know the proper protocol when something is suddenly unable to be done, or when a promotion is started with little notice.

Normally if there is something wrong with my service I try and solve it myself (removng tomatoes or other things I might not have wanted, it's really not a big deal unless your allergic.) If I can't solve the problem on my own then I will kindly bring the issue to the workers attention, but I'm not agrressive or rude about it. I undertsand that if my food was made wrong, that getting snarky with the server isn't going to help, especially since it's not like they're in the back cooking anywho.

It's also important to remember that we never know what else is going on behind the scenes that may be causing this "poor service." A few weeks ago I had a man cussing me out because it had taken 8 minutes for him to get his food.... What he didn't realize was that I was working headset, front counter, and was making all the food by myself because my coworker had fallen onto the grill, and another girl had to run her to the ER. We're all just people trying to work and do our best, sometimes misunderstandings happen but it's important we all as customers and servers do our best to be patient and respect one another.

[MiriaRose]

^ He was mad because it took eight minutes? That's ridiculous.

[Dubaby]

People are always throwing fits at my work.... that's just the nature of working fast food.

[superjaz]

^Yes and nothing gives some one the right to swear at another like that.  

I would also remind the importance of leaving positive feed back when service is good or great, way I figure is if you would complain if something was bad, you should compliment if its good.

Other day had awesome service from a mc Donalds and I called in  and left positive feed back.  The person taking my call took my info and then sent me 2 coupons for free desserts, first time I got something free for saying "good job", but not complaining.  

Its sad when the waitress/clerk/cashier gets the abuse when (often) don't have anything to do with the problem, just the ones left with fixin it
(for the Kmart trip I nominated my cashier online for excellent service award)

Brings to mind a red robin trip for my birthday, <3 free birthday burger ordered a burger with tiny pink, and it was bleeding.  When the waitress came to check I didn't even have to explain she could see.  She went and put in an order for a new burger.
When it came, it was a charcoal brickett.  At this point I wasn't going to say anything because it was a free burger and they had tried to fix, but then the waitress came by and asked "isn't that a 100% better?" So I showed her.
She talked to some one and they gave me a $10 gift card so that was nice, and great service, just left hungry.

[MiriaRose]

People are always throwing fits at my work.... that's just the nature of working fast food.

Really? I have a friend who works at Taco Time and he loves working there. His only complaint was his work schedule. And like Jaz said, you shouldn't have to put up with that. ):

Jaz, that's great. My best friend's mom got free breakfast coupons from the Hilton a few years ago because she got really good service from them and called in to leave her feedback.

[nikkiolie]

If it involves food at a restaurant I will fix it. At fast food I will fix it if I am staying there but half the time if I go through the drive through I don't notice if something is wrong till I get home. I always count to make sure I have everything but that is it.

One thing that bothers me at work is people that come up to the service desk and say this item rung up for 10.99 and I saw a sign that said it was 9.99 or 10.49 ect ect. I don't know about you but my time is worth more than a dollar so if I was a customer I would move on and forget it because I would get annoyed that they would have someone check or the "really?!" look.