As much as try not to be ruled by my gut, I am an unapologetic “foodie”. That coupled with my proclivity for cost savings and penchant for online ordering and you have yourself one overzealous-coupon-carrying food enthusiast.
This was the case the other night when just for registering my customer card with Qdoba’s rewards program, I received a free drink and chips and salsa for my troubles (which I have yet to claim, as I had bigger fish tacos to fry that day). So after coming home from an obligatorily long work day and deciding that nothing particular in my refrigerator tickled my fancy, I came to the conclusion that I had a taste for Mexican cuisine. Short of actually serving the food to me in hearty forkfuls, Qdoba’s website did everything from allowing me to tailor-make my order to offering me a custom timeframe in which to have my meal prepared for pick-up (and did I mention the promotional discounts???).
Too good to be true, right? Well yeah. When my honey made the 7-minute drive to pick up our dinner, he was greeted by a locked door and dimmed restaurant lights. After refusing to be denied (translation: he really did not want to hear my mouth), one of the store employees let him in, only to explain that the store was closed (at 9pm). By this time, his righteous indignation had set-in and he began his tirade about having just placed and paid for an order online, and why would the store have accepted the payment and order (with a 9:20 pick-up confirmation) if the store closed at 9pm on the weekdays. He was offered some hogwash about the online and in-store systems not always syncing properly, but upon seeing he was in the preliminary stages of a dissatisfied-customer meltdown on my behalf, a manager was called to rectify the situation.
Giving his spiel a second time, my honey asked for a refund (while calling me in the process) and prepared to take his taste buds elsewhere. Because the business was closed and the registers were down for the night however, the manager told my honey that our money would have to be refunded the next day. But the surprise came when, in a stroke of pure Customer Service 101 Genius, the manager not only promised to refund our money, but to comp our same order for the following day!
Are you kidding me, who does that these days? I was totally verklempt! I mean, I didn’t even get a chance to ask for his boss’s boss our warm up my pen and notepad!
But the true shame is that I actually was surprised by this manager’s efforts to ensure that my honey left his establishment as satisfied customer. Don’t get me wrong; the guy was great and I appreciate his old school ideologies with regard to patrons, but if I’m honest, we are a so far removed from 1965, and it is seldom that I encounter a business that will do right by me (when the error is theirs) without a little arm twisting, you know?
So for as much as I fuss when businesses engage in blatant buffoonery at my expense, how could I not shout out one that went above and beyond expectations…and caused a gluttonous 3lb. weight gain in the process?
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
No, I’m not making epic music on my horn (although I did play the tenor sax until Junior High School…Fanny Pack Fun Fact # 128), but I am in A Sentimental Mood as I’ve been reflecting on 2011 and making preparations for a productive 2012.
