The decline of customer service in four recent examples: Part 1 -- Burger King

1. "Customers like you"

On a recent road trip with my 88-year old mother, we stopped at a Burger king, with the hope of ordering a few of their cheesy tots, which are basically tater tots filled with cheese.  Something one could get sick of (and sick from) pretty quickly, but they were still new to us -- and counted as vegetarian food -- so that was our decision.  

The drive-thru sign didn't specifically advertise them, but it did advertise the jalapeno cheddar bites, which looked good too.  We specifically asked if they had the cheesy tots, and the girl said yes.  We ordered one order of those, plus one order of jalapeno cheddar bites.  It came to a little over $4.00, and we drove through and paid happily.  The girl told us to drive the car a bit up and they would bring them to our car, since they had only just started being cooked.

That sounded good too -- they would be fresh.

But after about five minutes the girl came out with a bag, which contained two orders of mozzarella sticks.  In contradiction to her earlier representation that the tots and bites just needed to be cooked, she now told us that they simply didn't have either of the tots or the bites.  She wondered whether we would accept mozzarella sticks instead.  Now, mozzarella sticks have been around for a while, and while it's possible that I once liked them, I have been thoroughly grossed out by them for some time.  So I said no thank you, please just give me a refund.  The girl went in to process the refund but then came back out after a while with her manager, who said we would need the credit card to do it.  I gave the manager the credit card.  Then began another long wait.  At least five minutes with no updates.  At this point all we wanted was our credit card back so we could drive away and find food somewhere else.  

Eventually the girl walked by our car to deliver something to another customer who was parked in the parking lot.   Since our car was off, and I couldn't open the window, I opened the door to and tried to get her attention by speaking to her, but she simply ignored me.  I slammed the door which made her jump a little but she walked right on.  I tried to get her attention on the way back, but she was strictly avoiding eye contact, so I yelled - instinctively -- LOOK AT ME.  She didn't, and went through the door which closed behind her.  I got out of the car to go through the door but it was a one-way door which had locked behind her.  

After another multi-minute wait, the manager came back with the credit card, plus 4 dollars and change.  she explained that they couldn't process the refund to the credit card after all; all they could do was give us cash.  Which of course would have been fine in the first place.  

I have not been that furious for years.  I didn't yell at her but I could barely contain myself in trying to extract an apology from her.  I told her that my mother was 88 years old and we had been driving for 8 hours and that it unacceptable for us to be have to wait there for 20 minutes after first being told we'd get our food etc.  She responded quite coolly that she had been working there since 730 am that day (which was about 13 hours previous) protecting her staff from "customers like you."  

Sort of interesting.  I'm guessing very few people drive up to Burger King with the intent of being a frustrated and angry customer.  But this particular Burger King (in Northern Virginia) clearly had its own way of creating such customers.  Rather than thinking of ways to avoid creating frustrated and angry customers in the first place, this manager seemed to view her job as protecting her employees from the customers that their horrible customer service culture had created.

To be clear, the problems here were:

• Telling us they had both cheesy tots and jalapeno bites when they didn't
• Telling us that we had to wait while the non-existent cheesy tots and jalapeno bites were cooking.
• After making us wait 5 minutes for nothing, trying to give us mozzarella sticks instead.  
• A better approach would have been to come out and offer us something else off the menu rather than the take-it-or-leave-it mozzarella stick approach.
• Telling us they needed our credit card for a refund, when it turned out they couldn't process the refund on the credit card.
• Holding on to the credit card for at least 5 minutes.
• Walking right past my car without giving me an update on where my credit card was and when I'd get it back.
• Not making eye contact and ignoring my pleas for information.
• Telling me that I was a bad "customer" (in saying she had to protect her people from "customers like you").

If race matters, my mother and I are white, the order-taking girl was white, and the manager was brown.

I called the Burger King complaint line and was on hold for at least 15 minutes of our continuing drive, which might give you a sense of how many complaints they are getting or how little they care about the complaints they get.

I finally reached someone and was able to describe the place and what had happened.  She made some of the right sounds, although she didn't really seem all that engaged -- more like she was reading from a script.  She told me I'd get a gift certificate for having taken the time to call.  Not restitution or an apology or anything like that; just a thank you from them to me for taking the time to give them feedback.  In response to my questions, she said they would contact the store and find out what went on.  She even said I could call back and that someone might be able to give me an update.  But I never called back; just couldn't stand the idea of waiting another 15 minutes just to talk to someone, and I didn't have an incident number or anything like that.  I did get a 5 dollar gift certificate.

Although this was literally the worst customer service experience I've ever had, it actually didn't completely surprise me coming from Burger King.  For this trip, Burger King had become our go-to place because they have Impossible Whoppers and we are vegetarians.  They even had a deal where you could buy one and get the other for $1, or else buy two meals impossible whopper meals for $10.  But we did that because of the impossible whoppers, not the customer service.  Another bonus was that the drive-throughs and the stores were usually mostly empty -- perhaps that should have been a sign.

I think this was our about our fourth Burger King stop on a two day road trip -- on a previous one there had been no Impossible Burgers (and no apology) and on another no coffee, and also no apology.  In talking to others, this is about par for the course for Burger King.  Interestingly, I don't recall ever having anything like this kind of experience at a McDonalds,., which I still occasionally go to for a salad, or fries, or a shake.  I guess that's the difference that Hamburger University makes.