Wrongs Made Right

A year or so ago I was traveling by van to a conference with some of my colleagues. On the way home we stopped for lunch at Perkins. It was busy. Sunday brunchers filled the restaurant. We understood that we would have to wait a bit. We waited. And waited. Still waiting. Finally when the place was completely empty we were shown to a table. We waited. And waited. More waiting. In all, we spent nearly 2 hours there—only 30 minutes of which were we eating. We were all pretty disappointed.

I was the only one disappointed enough to call their national customer service number. But I emphasized that my feelings were shared by the other 5 people in my party. The person I spoke to took my information and apologized profusely.

A few days later I got a message from the manager of the restaurant we’d been to. She apologized for our treatment and asked me to call her back. I didn’t return her call immediately, but she wanted to make sure things were made right, so she persisted in calling until she got a hold of me. She sent 6 vouchers for free meals. Unfortunately, although she had said they’d be good at any Perkins, they did say they were only good at hers.

So I called the local Perkins restaurant and spoke to the manager. I explained the situation and asked if he would accept the vouchers we had—acknowledging that he had nothing to do with our complaint. He told me to come in and he would give me vouchers for the local restaurants in exchange for the ones I had. After all, he said, Perkins is a brand name, and he didn’t want us not eating at any Perkins because of a bad experience at one.

As I passed out the vouchers to my colleagues, they were all quite impressed with what my complaining had accomplished.

Next story: For the ward Christmas party I was in charge of the hot apple cider. So I went to Food Lion and bought a lot of cider. Turns out, it was too much. I returned to said grocery store with the receipt and 4 unopened gallons of cider. The woman at customer service had no problem accepting the return. She just didn’t want to give me my original receipt back. “I need that receipt so I can be reimbursed for everything else I bought but didn’t return.” She kept trying to tell me that there was no way she could give me the receipt back. Finally she logged a record of the transaction into the computer and that apparently fixed it all. (Why didn’t she do that in the first place? Who knows?!) But then I did the unthinkable—I asked for a receipt or record of the return for me to keep as well. Again, she believed that this was out of the question and would require the alignment of the planets and world peace and an end to world hunger in order to accomplish. I argued back that I NEEDED it. Couldn’t she just make me a little copy of that transaction she’d just recorded in the computer. Nope. And then she decided that she’d have to ignore me and help the next 4 people, who had gotten in line during the time she’d been telling me that I was asking her to turn water into wine, before she could possibly attend to what I needed.

Thirty minutes after entering the store with 4 gallons of cider I was able to leave with a refund and 2 receipts.

Again, I called the national customer service number. They listened to my complaint. The next day the store manager called. He apologized for my treatment and confirmed that everything I had asked for should have been no problem. To show that Food Lion still wanted my business, he had a $10 gift card waiting for me at the store.

No boycott needed for Perkins or Food Lion. They addressed the problems and did what they could to make it right by me.