When a business makes a mistake they also create an opportunity to impress the customer that wasn’t treated well. When a clerk at Nordstrom rack treated me poorly as I tried to return a pair of shoes that were defective, the manager called the next day, apologized and offered to look over my shoes herself (she accepted the return). When a restaurant makes a mistake with your order, they have the opportunity to throw in a free desert or take the price of the item off your bill.
This weekend Jack in the Box shorted Kim $10 at the drive-thru. She had started to pull away from the drive-thru when she noticed the mistake a d decided to drive back around where she was treated poorly but the man working drive thru. He said there was no way he’d made a mistake and that he’d only be able to take her name and phone number. If the $10 showed up once the registers were reconciled, maybe we’d hear from him. We weren’t expecting to hear back from him, yet today we received a call saying they had our ten bucks if we wanted to come get it. It’s cool he called but he couldn’t have sounded any less excited nor did he apologize for the mistake.
Here’s what Jack in the Box could have done to turn a bad customer experience into a good one:
1. Apologize – Nothing big here. Just say you made a mistake and you apologize for the trouble. Most people understand mistakes happen.
2. Give us a Gift Certificate – How about tossing in a $10 gift certificate?
3. Free Desert – Kim drove through with our three young kids in the car. Why not offer them a free ice cream or something?
4. Deliver the $10 – This would have impressed us the most. Call first to say they have the $10 and offer to deliver the money to our house. Even better, throw in some fries and a few burgers for the trouble.
The point is that Jack in the Box botched the chance to turn a bad experience for us into a positive experience. And we are not talking about spending 4 hours or $100. Something simple would have shown us that you care we chose you over those five other fast food joints on the same block.
Nordquist Blog 
I just had a nightmarish experience with an outrageously rude employee at the Jack-in-the-box located in Costa Mesa, CA on 17th street. The employee was the biggest jerk. He provoked me in a nasty, condescending, pompous manner refusing to acknowledge that my order was not right. I attempted to get the matter worked out, but he just continued to be self righteous, pompous and rude. I finally slid what was supposed to have been a chocolate shake through the window and you would have thought and evidently it grazed his hand or arm lightly. You would have thought that I had intentionally thrown a 90 m.p.h. baseball through the window because he reacted like he had been assaulted or something like a psycho. Next he refused to get a manager so I resorted to contacting the 800 customer service number. The employee and supervisor with whom I spoke at the 800 # actually had the audacity to scold me and act like their employee was trying to protect himself. (From a friggin’ 1lb milk shake!!!) I don’t know if that whole company is smoking crack or just plain delusional and nuts, but I’ll never go to another jack-in-the-box as long as I live after that unnecessary drama. I don’t need to be provoked to the point of bordering on harassment because some jerk doesn’t want to acknowledge and fix what could have been a simple problem. Their 800 customer service dept. employees and managers need to enroll in sanity 101 and customer service for dummies 101. They suck.
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