Wanted: Good customer service

I know I'm going to sound like an old fart, longing for the good old days when we had to play Space Invaders and Pele's Soccer on the Atari instead of Lego Indiana Jones and FIFA 2010 on the Wii, but I'm about as pissed off as I've ever been right now.

First of all, good old-fashioned customer service is pretty much non-existent. A year or so ago, the queen and I went to Arby's. She ordered a No. 1. They gave her a No. 4. The queen took it to the counter to get what she ordered, and the lady who took her order argued, saying that no, my wife DID order a No. 4. I was standing next to her, and I know she said No. 1.

But that was nothing compared to this. Last summer, we decided to surprise the kids at Christmas with a trip to a Coco Key Water Resort in Kansas City. We were going to stay the night at the adjacent Holiday Inn. I paid for the entire trip up front via Coco Key's web site.

We had a good time there. Nice hotel, nice water park. Not sure it was worth the $231.03, but hey, the kids enjoyed it during a time when it was frickin' freezing outside.

Checked out, thought all was well. Until I got my bank statement, indicating the Holiday Inn charged us again. I called Coco Key initially, and they confirmed I paid last summer. I called Holiday Inn last Friday. Left message. No call back. Called Monday. Left message. No call back. Called Tuesday. Left message. No call back. Note that each message was left for the same person. Called Wednesday. AT LAST! I got ahold of the lady I was trying to call! I figured this was finally it. After letting her know that I was upset not only with the bank charge but also her not returning my calls (she acted like this was the first she’d heard of it), she tried to give me the runaround. She transferred me to someone who, on his voicemail, said he was out of the office until Jan. 25. I immediately transferred back to previous lady. She said the charge was probably a hold and that was common with hotels. I told her no, I had already paid for the room. The only reason I was told my card was needed at checkin was for any charges that might incur during out stay. That’s fair. She started to sound nervous, and told me she would check into it and call back. Pissed off, I decided to go for a run. The lady actually called back and told the queen we were right and the money had been refunded to our account. My wife said we deserved more than that, and the lady said she would send us a free night certificate.

Naturally, I thought it was over. 24 hours later, our money has not been returned to our bank account. I called again. Left a message. No call back yet.

I have also emailed the corporate office, and they said my concerns would be passed on to the hotel. If it’s not cleared up in 48 hours, I’m supposed to reply to the email at corporate.

I have one simple question – how fucking hard can this be? They had no trouble taking the money out of my account, but putting it back seems to be tougher than the Royals winning 80 games. I’m about to snap over this, I’m so pissed off.

Creole out …

 

Never seen someone argue with you about what you ordered.

 

king, I had a similar situation a couple years ago with a Marriott property. I didn't even get a free night out of it and it took a week for the money to get back into my account after 7 e-mails and 10 phone calls. And I was a platinum member.

Good luck.

 

And it was "a year or so," which could be 5 years.

But I know what you mean. The memory of a bad visit lasts far, far longer than the memory of a good one.
A bad visit can erase dozens of good ones, too.

 

Feels like an Arby's night.

 

I'm with you creole. Companies just don't give a shit about what people think. I had an experience recently with a Popeye's where they gave me dark instead of white meat (I hate dark meat) at the drive-through. So, I went inside to get it fixed, and I explain to the lady that they messed up my order and put dark instead of white and she says "That wasn't me, I didn't take your order" then walks to the back. I had to wait a minute or so before someone else came to the counter and took care of the order. I said "I'd like to speak to a manager about this" and the girl replied "That was the manager you talked to earlier."

Needless to say, I fired off a pretty nasty e-mail to Popeye's corporate office and I have not visited a Popeye's since.

 

I wasn't sure whether to be happy or pissed at Arby's.
I ordered a couple of regular Arby's and a small soda. The total cost seemed to be less than I expected. I looked at the receipt and saw that I was given a senior citizen discount.

 

Let's be honest: If you are working in fast food, you probably aren't a go-getter who worked hard enough and had enough foresight to go into a better-paying, better-prospects job like reporting. Speaking as someone who put quite a few years into the "quick-service" industry, the few employees with any talent or ambition have it beaten out of them pretty quickly.

You get what you pay for. If I go to a nice restaurant and get poor service, I'm annoyed. If I go to McDonald's and I get the same number of items as I ordered, I'm calling it a win.

 

That totally sucks.

But not to be an asshole, but when something is supposed to be refunded into my account I always assume that it's going to take 2-3 days. If I start bouncing checks or can't purchase something because of this, then I raise cain.

 

Somehow, the motto "the customer is always right" was lost. It is the exception rather than the rule these days.

As for minimum wage jobs, as a kid, that's where you started and if you did not know how to do the job, they got someone else.