I'm thinking I'll eat elsewhere
Boy do I have a long and twisted tale to tell about my now tarnished relationship with Arby's. First, I should say that Arby's and I go back all the way to college, where me and my friend Matt would often eat because WHO DOESN'T LOVE CURLY FRIES? Plus, I was a big fan of the Jamocha shake. Anywhoodle, I've been a frequent "guest" of Arby's since about 2000, so 10 years give or take.
But what has happened in the last 22 days has completely taken away my taste for Arby's, and I don't think I'll ever be able to eat there again...
I found out via Facebook that Arby's was having a promotion on time change day to promote their new roastburger. Basically, if you walked into an Arby's on Sunday, March 8, and said "I want to change my burger," they were to give you a Roastburger free with the purchase of a regular fries and drink. Since the economy is shit and my not working isn't really helping our own bottom line here on Muldrow Main Street, we were excited to go out and try a new product for free.
Sadly, the Arby's we stopped by didn't seem to have a CLUE about how this promotion worked, and told the group in front of us who tried to get their roastburgers that they needed a coupon. Well, that was totally and completely false. However, I had printed out the facebook group page featuring the promotion, and so the cashier allowed ONE of us to get the free roastburger...which also was NOT part of the promotion. There wasn't a limit other than one per person, and this person didn't even get her roastburger!
Well, I ordered my regular roast beef combo and we sat down where I started to really look around...this Arby's (On Haywood Road in Greenville, next to Wendy's, just down from the mall, seriously, don't eat there) was *SO* nasty...aside from just being outdated in their decor, it was DIRTY. The condiment station had obviously been out of order for a LONG time, and it didn't seem like anyone was in a hurry to fix it or fill it as evidenced by the bins of sauce packets by the registers. There were big shipping boxes of buns sitting out for the "guests" to check out, and the cashier, while not rude, was hardly what I'd call attentive, preferring to laugh it up with her co-workers than clean up the dining room or learn about her company's promotions.
Well, this would not do. Aside from not being able to take advantage of the promotion as it was intended, I felt like this store really painted a bad picture for Arby's. So I headed over to their website comment section to let them know what had happened on my visit. A few days later, I recieve a "Thank you for your comment, has anyone followed up with you on the matter?" email. I replied that no, no one had contacted me at all and that I found that to be a bit rude in itself...other than the automated response, I had no confirmation that my complaints were even being read.
Another week goes by and still NOTHING. So I return to the customer website section and rewrite my woes, this time adding that this is the SECOND time I've tried to get some sort of response regarding the complaint. Again, nothing for several days until today, when I get another one of those, "Thank you for your comment, has anyone followed up with you on the matter?" emails.
ARE. YOU. F-ING. KIDDING???
So I wrote them back and told them that not only I have I STILL not received any sort of feedback regarding my complaints, but that I can only assume that their idea of customer service is to ignore the problem so that it will go away. And go away I have, Arby's. And I also told them how I was going to blog about their complete and total lack of customer service so that I could warn other people not to eat there, because you know what? I don't have enough money to eat out at a restaurant who doesn't give a shit about having dirty, nasty stores or unhappy customers. I can take the money I have across the street to Chick-Fil-A, where I am always treated well and my food is always good and they know what promotions are running.
The moral of the story is that with us having less money these days, I'm not going to take it anymore when I eat out and my food is cold or my service is bad. And it's one thing to have a bad experience at a restaurant and have the company address the issue, but when the entire company ignores you, that tells me that they don't deserve my business or my money.
To be fair, I'm also now contacting restaurants when I have a good experience so that they will hopefully keep up the good work.
I know it takes time, but we need to all start requiring companies who want our business to treat us well. If we are all willing to both point out when they do things right and when they do things wrong, maybe some of the customer service and quality from years past will once again become the norm!