Tuesday, July 11, 2006

GREAT Customer Service!

It's so rare to find really good customer service these days so I just have to share my most recent encounter.
A couple of weeks ago the six of us went out to dinner which is never an inexpensive undertaking, but since the teenager is on the all red meat all the time diet and cannot be satisfied by anything less than about 24 ounces of beef it becomes even more expensive! We decided to go to Lone Star Steakhouse since it's only a few blocks away and they have lots of red meat on their menu. Mark and The Princess and I had been there for lunch a year ago because she wanted to eat there on her summer "date" with us. The food had been good and the service excellent, so we decided to try it for dinner. What a nightmare. It took forever for anyone to even acknowledge us even though it wasn't busy. The teenager ordered an appetizer and it honestly took over 20 minutes to get it. And then it was cold! I was not given what I ordered, the teenager's steak (which he likes Medium rare) was still mooing! It looked raw! No drink refills, etc., etc., etc. Not a good experience. By the time it was over and we got the bill, it had been a two hour dinner. I was not in the mood to argue with anyone and just wanted to go home. The bill was around $100. Ouch!
The following day I emailed the corporate office, not expecting much. The last time I did that I got a $20 gift card to whichever restaurant it was. Anyway, about 4 days later I got a call from the regional manager for the restaurant. He was very apologetic and said that never should have happened. They had several other complaints from the same time period and they were so sorry, blah, blah, blah. He assured me that the problems had been fixed and they were going to send me a little something so that we could come back in and have the "proper dining experience" that they were striving for. I really thought I'd be getting a little gift card that would be useless since we wouldn't be going back.
Yesterday in the mail? I got a letter from the corporate offices. The letter is profusely apologetic and is a voucher for dinner for 6, up to $120 value. Way to do the right thing Lone Star!

3 Comments:

Blogger Karin said...

Goes to show - you gotta be the squeaky wheel! lol!

1:48 PM  
Blogger Shannon said...

I think I'll let my hubby start complaining when things don't go right. I hate to bring attention to us because, like yourself, we are a family of 6 and we get enough attention (especailly with my very loud husband) without complaining.

I understand that big dinner bill. My kids think we should go out to eat at least once a week and I just can't seem to get it through their heads that money just doesn't grow on trees!

9:37 PM  
Blogger Janet said...

WOW1 That's great!

10:55 PM  

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