Fun With Carbs

I took a handful of marketing courses in college. And the one thing that always stuck with me was the old adage, “If you receive good customer service, you’ll tell (two or three) people. If you receive BAD customer service, you’ll tell (eight or 10 or 20, depending on how hyperbolic the professor wanted to get.)”

It’s true. It’s way more fun to share war stories of run-ins with nasty clerks/managers/customer service reps with your friends and family. I had to stifle nervous laughter last week when a woman in front of me in line at the Connecticut DMV screeched, “BITCH!” at the counter clerk and stormed out of the building. (And of course, I updated Facebook with the story as soon as I got home.)

We are so accustomed to lackadaisical, cold, unhelpful, sarcastic,  dismissive (OH, I COULD GO ON) customer service these days that I think we should do the opposite – tell scores of people when we are treated really well by a particular organization. So that’s what I hope to do today.

If you’ve ever bought a gift certificate from Restaurant.com, you know what a deal it is. The site often promotes deep discounts on its stock (at one point this summer, it was offering $25 gift certificates for 90% off – which translated to $1 apiece.) And if you dine out a lot, like my friends and I do, you tend to buy in bulk, especially if a favorite restaurant is participating.

But the restaurants themselves aren’t always as generous or flexible. It’s up to the establishments to set the rules for use – weeknights only, minimum purchase, automatic 18% gratuity, not valid on holidays, not valid for alcohol, etc. etc. etc. I get it. They’re still trying to make money, after all. But as a result, diners tend to hold on to their gift certificates for certain occasions. Maybe they can’t make it out on a weeknight that easily. Maybe it’s for a birthday, or an anniversary, or some other particular date that isn’t within days or weeks of purchase.

And then you get to the eatery and find out that the place no longer accepts restaurant.com gift certificates. Okay, fine. But now you’re holding on to a useless piece of paper. While you may have only paid $2 or $3 for that certificate, it’s still something that was (not long ago) worth $25.

This happened to me last night at Chef Wayne’s Big Mamou in Springfield, Mass. I was holding on to two certificates for that restaurant, purchased at the end of November 2009. When we sat at our table, I saw a handwritten sign on the wall that Mamou’s would no longer accept these certificates, effective Nov. 1, 2010. The date of our visit? Nov. 3. You’ve got to be kidding me.

I didn’t try to challenge their policy. (Mamou’s waitstaff isn’t exactly friendly.) But what I did do was take it to Twitter:

FunWithCarbsLG

Really disappointed by restaurants that discontinue @restaurant_com promotions. At least honor my gift certificate w/in a year’s time!

Within hours, I got a cheery response from Restaurant.com’s Twitter account:

Restaurant_com

@funwithcarbslg We can help! DM us ur rest.com email addy & we can issue you an exchange for a diff rest. on our program.

Unexpected, and probably unnecessary on their end (the choice to discontinue was at the restaurant’s discretion,) but made me feel valued. And certainly less annoyed.

Then I remembered that they had taken care of me on another issue last year, where I mistakenly bought three gift certificates at full price because I couldn’t find the box to enter the discount code. I sent a “can you help?” email to their customer service department, not expecting much. But within three days, three or four people contacted me to say they’d refunded a percentage of my purchase. Again, not necessary for them to do; it was my stupid mistake. But it reflects positively on that company that they’re willing and able to resolve customer situations in such a timely manner.

So thank you, restaurant.com, for easing the frustration and providing service with a (virtual) smile. And I guess I’d better start using up some of my banked certificates.