*clears throat* ahem

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WetNightmare: by sebmojo

Ordered 20 chicken Mc Nuggets, 3 chicken Legends meals, 2 cheeseburgers and an apple pie for us and the builders working on our house at the time. English isn't my mothers first language, and so she wrote down the order along with the need for dipping sauces to ensure her request was clear.

Drove home to discover the dipping sauces were missing. Don�t get me wrong, it happens, however I wasn�t going to drive back 4 miles and all-in-all it ruined the enjoyment of the food at the time.

I decided to phone the restaurant to express my dismay to a helpful young lad who told me that all complaints have to go to a central office. I suggested I wasn�t actually looking to complain at this stage as this wouldn�t really help either of us and really a free meal would suffice as a goodwill-gesture next time we were in. He seemed to appreciate this candid statement, however still said it had to go through the designated channels.

I did hear from their head office a week or so later, who offered me 6 free Chicken McNuggets. Not exactly generous considering the size of our initial order. What grated me more was the complete lack of accountability. I was told that had she asked for dipping sauces my mother should have stated so. I was under the impression that writing it as a list on a piece of paper should make it pretty easy to follow.

I then phoned the woman who allegedly sent this letter and asked her to donate the 6 Chicken Mc Nuggets to charity, instead I�d actually just prefer an apology for her factually incorrect statement.

She put me in charge with the Regional manager, Mr Mike Charles. He proceeded to interrupt me throughout my dialogue and said their offer was more than reasonable and I should check my order in future. In frustration I mentioned I would take it further, to which he replied nonchalantly �take it as far as you want�

An initially understanding and apologetic customer service woman did pass on my call to another member of McDonalds who informed me that the matter would be looked into further.

After this nothing, despite two follow up calls. A systematic lack of failings at a local, regional and national level within McDonalds then. All I wanted was a replacement meal and an apology. Not because I am in the nature of complaining or in the habit of exploiting free meals, but just some reassurance that a business, no matter how big values me as a customer. I actually decided at the time that I�d stay quiet, except my sister went two weeks later and they forgot to include the fillet-o-fish in the order. I wonder if Mike Charles does read this article and perhaps out of all of it Mike you might want to pay attention to the key concept of customer empathy in business. In the grand scheme of things a replacement meal and a few nice words to diffuse the situation would have worked really well. Clearly you felt it more beneficial to be principled. I�ve taken this as my primary motivation to do the same.