Update: Service Recovery from McDonald’s

If you read my blog this past Saturday, you know that I did some venting about an unusually bad service experience at the Northeast, Md. McDonald’s this past weekend.  In this blog I detailed my experience and suggested that we the consumers in America should take more proactive actions when we feel we have not been treated fairly.

I totally believe this, and plan to continue this theme within my blog for the short-term.  I also want it noted that I will also be recognizing the good experiences as well as the bad and the ugly.

Which brings me to this update.  After blogging my experience on Saturday, I continued my venting by posting my experience to the McDonald’s Corporation website – and yes, I did share with them the link to my blog site – which they apparently read!

Earlier this evening I had a conversation with the area supervisor from McDonald’s – Mr. Greg Uggo (Greg, it dawns on me that I never asked for the proper spelling of your name, so please accept my apology if I got it wrong).  Greg was very interested in hearing my experience and wanted to communicate to me that what happened is totally unacceptable and that he is very embarrassed.  He told me that he knows that many families like mine come into this establishment on their way to or from their children’s activities (dance class, sporting events, etc.), and that McDonald’s mission is to service the consumers efficiently and effectively so we can continue on with our afternoons.

I know many of you might be thinking, “Not enough!”  For me, I am very satisfied.  As I communicated to Greg, I had no problem with a short wait on Saturday, I just would have appreciated being acknowledged – to know that my business was important and that they wanted to provide a quality service to me.  Greg did an excellent job of “Service Recovery” by taking responsibility, apologizing, and pledging to address this with the manager whose behavior was out of line with the expectations of McDonald’s.

For his efforts, I figured Greg deserved immediate recognition and his actions to be published in my blog.  I will follow-up and report my satisfaction on the McDonald’s website.

As a parting thought for today – I think this proves the power of the consumer.  Greg indicated that they take any negative comment seriously – but the fact that I put it in writing on my blog was particularly concerning to him.  He felt it sent a message to the community that McDonald’s doesn’t care about them.  I know this is not true, and he shared with me some of the good things they are doing in the Northeast, Md community.  I found this very pleasing.  Because he is so concerned with the long-term potential impact, I am very confident that the issue will be addressed in the appropriate manner as they do not want someone else to experience the same thing my daughter and I did.

So, if any of you reading this question what telling our stories can do, hopefully this experience proves to you the power we really do have.

Next time, I will share an ongoing issue we are having since our family vacation to Florida a few weeks ago.  That experience falls under the Bad category of the Good, Bad, and the Ugly.  Until next time…