I have a problem with HoneyBaked Ham.
I love their sandwiches, but the shop closest to my house isn’t very good at making them.
…sometimes…
I used to grab lunch there all the time until I finally gave up because they were constantly making mistakes that I wouldn’t discover until I got to my desk and unwrapped something that wasn’t quite what I wanted to eat.
I think the final straw was when the person forgot to take the paper off of the cheese slices … an error that I found only halfway through my sandwich!
So I had stopped going there for a while and recently decided to give them another try, however the last couple of weeks our relationship has devolved into the same old series of errors again. Omitted ingredients included, requested ingredients forgotten. A few weeks ago they decided to put horseradish on my wife’s sandwich – one of those condiments that if you didn’t specifically ask for it, you probably don’t want it.
🙁
Today when I stopped in after picking my son up from school, I noted that they’d made a bunch of mistakes last time and if they could pay better attention when making my food, I’d appreciate it. And it honestly wasn’t as well received as I would’ve liked … they did hear my complaints, though they had a few excuses along the way, but there was also some eye-rolling when they asked who had waited on me and I replied.
…because I think the guy is the manager…
Regardless, a couple of big parts about how I judge customer service are as follows:
- How you respond to mistakes
- What you do to improve on them
- How you make up for the inconvenience
The first one should be easy – “I’m really sorry about that – that’s not what we like to hear.”
I never really got that, or if I did, it was overshadowed by the excuses and eye-rolling over their boss.
Next – “Let’s go over your order to make sure that we get it right this time.”
They did this.
And lastly – “How about we pay for one of your sandwiches today to make up for last time?”
Hahahahaha!
That totally didn’t happen! In fact, when I questioned the high price for so little food that I was getting (because apparently they mark up their combos like crazy – an extra $2.50 for a soda and chips?!), she just quoted everything at full price like it was no big deal.
Even their clumsy manager who’d screwed up our order last time offered me a discount from the time before…
Now I don’t want this to sound like I’m just always cruising for a discount, however I do strongly believe that if a corporation doesn’t take some sort of financial penalty for its mistakes, it’s like they never really occurred in the first place. I mean, how many times have you called your cable or cell phone company and spent half an hour on the phone, only to have them try to upsell you while all you want is for them to fix the service that’s broken that you’re already paying for?!
I get that customer service is hard, however it’s not really a stretch of the imagination to suggest that I should be able to walk into the same store week after week and get the same sandwich every time. This is not sandwich art – there’s literally a big sign right there on the wall that explains how to make each one!
But that lack of consistency makes me not want to eat lunch at HoneyBaked as often because that sandwich I really like isn’t always the sandwich that I’m going to get. And that’s bad news for a company to hear because when you have a customer who’s eager to come back again and again, the last thing you want to do is disappoint them because you don’t deliver a consistent experience every time that they walk through your door.
And as a side note – the inconsistent sandwiches are what will make me think twice the next time I’m looking to grab lunch, but not being more receptive to criticism is what will send me to Panera or Firehouse instead.
When a customer is still willing to be a customer and walk through your door, you should listen carefully to what they have to say about your service. Because not everyone will come back to tell you when they’re disappointed.