It Paid to Complain

If you're a frequent reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm not a big complainer when it comes to retail or restaurant customer service; however, on occasion, I do muster up the gusto to make my concern heard (especially in this economy)!

Saturday afternoon, I went to our local Pavilions to place a party platter order of fried chicken and sides for our Angels/Yankees tailgate on Sunday afternoon. After spending more than ample time with a new employee who was still learning the ropes, I finally got my order placed for pickup 10:00 sharp Sunday morning.

Well, much to our dismay, the order wasn't ready when we arrived at 10:00. I was told that the new employee put the order slip in the wrong place. What frustrated me the most was that another employee noticed that the order was placed in the wrong area, but didn't bother to move it to the right area??!!

At this point, Lee and I are fuming and three employees are scrambling to try to rectify the situation, which was going to set us back 45 minutes (they were offering to cook up the order right then and there). We sternly explained to them that there was a reason we wanted the order at 10:00 and couldn't wait until 10:45 to get on the road.

So, after we stormed out and I got the manager's name, we then headed to a local KFC and spent close to $25 more than we would've spent at Pavilions.

Which brings me to today and the point of this blog. I called our friendly manager at Pavilions and explained the situation. Of course, he was extremely apologetic and offered not to pay the difference between Pavilions and KFC, but is giving us a $65 gift card to cover all expenses (which was just a little bit more than we paid at KFC). I was very happy with this resolution and the manager's immediate apology and offer of a gift card. I truly believe in this situation it's worth it to him to spend $65 to save a longtime customer.

So, make your voice heard when it counts. Businesses are doing anything and everything to not only gain new clients, but keep existing ones very happy. Case in point...me.