EOC Week 1: Customer Service

Everybody has had a bad experience at a restaurant. Snobby waiters, cold food, long waits, it all happens! But it’s even worse when you have this horrendous experience, and no type of condolence for it. I mean, you at least expect dessert or something, right? Those rare occasions always make you leave with an angry glare and a bad taste in your mouth (probably due to the undercooked chicken). This has happened to me on many occasions. One in particular though sticks out in my mind, not because of the bad service, but what they did to make it better. How bad customer service turned into good customer service and I left happy and wanting to come back for more!

            Some friends and I went to Red Robin after class one day. It had been a rough week, so a treat sounded nice. Having just gotten paid two days before, of course, I was naturally almost out of money. But what a good way to spend my last bit of money then endless steak fries and an award winning burger, wouldn’t you agree? We get to the restaurant and it was obviously dinner time. They weren’t crazy busy, and there were definitely enough servers to go around, but there was a nice chunk of people there itching for their onion rings. We get to our table, give the waitress our drink order and talk to kill some time. Three people around us showed up shortly after we did, one had our waitress and the other two, someone else. After about 20 minutes, we finally saw our waitress again. She had brought two of our drinks, leaving the rest of us parched and hungry. We requested some steak fries, sauce, and gave her our order with the hopes that we'd be satisfied shortly. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The two people with the other waitress, but this point, had gotten their drinks, orders and appetizers. Starting to get irritated, we again, talked, waited 10 minutes, and like magic! Our other drinks arrived. Alone, however, and not accompanied by any kind of food, sauce, or steak fries. After another long while (we timed it... 16 minutes), our food showed up. At the same time, the two tables with the other waitress was halfway through their meal. We take a bite and all of us our disgusted at our food. It was cold. Not "the chef didn't cook it properly" cold, but "the waitress was too busy talking to her friend at the drink station and left our food to sit" cold. We were not pleased. We choke down what we can, but at this point, we were all very upset. My friend finally gets up to get the manager. He comes over, we explain our poor service and he apologizes profusely. To make up for the horrible service, not only is our meal free, but he gives us a gift card for the amount we would have paid so we could come back again and have a decent meal. So basically, two meals for the price of none!

We left the restaurant happy and reflecting badly not on the restaurant, but the one waitress who offered crummy service. I feel like good customer service isn't keeping customers happy all the time, but also being able to make up for their adversity when it arises. :)