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My name is Paul Broughton, and I reside at 305 Chestnut St. in St. Thomas, on June 21 at 10:20 am, I went into the Mcdonalds to get two breakfast meals for my grandson and his friend. There was one girl taking the order, one person retrieving the order. When I arrived, there was approximately five people waiting for their order, and I was number seven in line to give my order. It took about ten minutes for me to give my order, from that point the waiting game started. None of the previous people who were waiting for their meals had received them at that point. They took one more order, then preceded to try to figure out who's order was who's. I heard one gentleman say to one of the people waiting, I have been waiting forty minutes. Thru the waiting period, three of the employees decided to have a conference. Finally at five minutes to eleven, I asked to speak to the manager. The employee I spoke to, went to get the manager, when she returned, she told me that she could not come and talk to me, to write down my complaint and she would deal with it later. I started to write out my complaint, telling the girl this would be a waste of time, as she would probably just throw it out, the manager arrived to see what my complaint was. I told her it was totally unacceptable, to have to wait so long, her excuse was that at that time of day, the wait is always that long. My question to you is, if this is a problem at this time of day, why not have more staff to accomodate the people? In closing, it was interesting that I received my order within minutes, ahead of the gentleman who was their before me. One family waited so long, they asked for their money back, two other families decided not to give orders and left. I thought you should be aware of this ongoing problem. Regards, Paul Broughton
305 Chestnut St.
St. Thomas, ontario
n5r 5n1
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
Management Office
McDonald’s
7702 McKnight Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
[protected]
June 15, 2008
Dear Sir or Madam:
This evening at 7:42 p.m., I made the grave mistake of I walking into the McDonald’s restaurant located at 7702 McKnight Road. I have my receipt in front of me: I was Order #219 at store #7445. I live nearby and I occasionally enjoy the convenience of simply walking down the hill and buying burgers to go.
In my past experience, this is not a very-well-run McDonald’s. It would be fair to say, perhaps, that in terms of quality of service, this restaurant challenges the general theory of standard deviation and plays Quasimodo to the bell curve. But hey, it’s cheap, right? And everyone knows what people who work at McDonald’s are like, after all.
I dealt with this insidious quick-service stereotype for years as a Subway employee. I know what it’s like, day after day and year after year, to be treated as if you were less than nothing by many of the customers who come to a food-service counter. I’ve also felt something of the quiet dignity that lives and breathes in the quick-service industry, however. At the end of each day, you know that you have prepared and offered a large number of people a meal, and that’s a lot more honorable than many other jobs in the world today. You look down at your hands and smile before you go home, because those hands fed hungry people safe food at a fair price.
Tonight, more than anything else, it was a lack of understanding of that quiet dignity on the part of the employees at McDonald’s that led to their providing such poor service. At all levels, from the server, who treated me as if I was a waste of skin and not a customer, on the young man making the sandwich, as if preparing my order was a needless expenditure of effort rather than the reason he is employed, to the young man on break who loudly laughed at his fellow employees’ lack of competence and treated their poor service skills as if it was some huge joke, to the manager, Trish, who, when I called to complain, told me that I must have the wrong McDonald’s, even after I told her I had the receipt in front of me.
It’s sad, more than anything else, that this group of people, some older, some young, have not been taught and shown how to hold their heads up and find the measure of pride in their jobs that is there. That’s a management failure, more than anything else, and it’s a real waste, in so many ways. Tonight, my poor experience could have been something very different: a moment to be proud about a job well done on the part of the employees, a pleasant visit on my part, a sales and service opportunity seized and acted on.
Instead, I’m writing this e-mail tonight to tell you that the people who were working at this restaurant tonight know little about professional courtesy and care even less about common courtesy. The restaurant was empty and quiet when I went in. It wasn’t a bad time and it wasn’t a bad day...it was just a bad job all around.
Copies of this e-mail will be distributed to the McKnight Journal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette North Edition, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I am also forwarding it to the McDonald’s regional and national offices, the Pittsburgh and Ross Township listservs I subscribe to, and everyone in my Pittsburgh address book. I’ll be posting it on my condominium community’s web page, my blog, and my North Hills community service page.
If you make inquiries about the quality of service this local McDonald’s restaurant provides in general, you will likely come to conclude, as I have, that I’m doing you a favor.
And finally, If you would like more detailed information about the exact particulars of my visit, please don’t hesitate to contact me at any of the contact numbers and addresses provided below.
Sincerely,
Jim Karatassos
I am going in that restaurant often because my child can play in indoor playground area. So I spent a lot of time and money in that restaurant and I always encounter with poor service. You always have to repeat minimum at twice what you want and finally get wrong order. That is very common. Customer service representative never say" sorry "or "can you repeat your order" if is problem to understand the order, than say "what"?"what"?.Manager of department service me and my child with pink water and saying me that is inside is Fruitopia and she assume that we suppose to drink that. Playground area is cleaned when is really time that have to be. So I always clean by myself table and sometimes we have to walk carefully to don't stick for food on the floor. Washroom many times was dirty that you have wish never go inside.
We had difficulty placing our order because the girl operating the cash register was either poorly trained or could not hear us. My husband actually made the comment that this was the longest it had ever taken him to place an order at a drive through. So, we paid for our order (2 large fries, 1 med tea, 1 large coke, 1 chicken nugget happy meal) and pulled up to the window to pick it up. The girl gave us a reciept but then forgot what we had ordered - so she had to ask us... As we were pulling away, we noticed fries missing from the happy meal. My husband went inside to deal with the issue when I noticed that my large fry was only half full (Since that's all I ordered, I expected to get what I paid for). The advertised kids toy (KidsBop cd) was not the toy we were given; we were given a sucky night at the museum toy. Since my child is 2 years old, I asked for a toddler toy instead and they were all out. I would not have paid the inflated price for a happy meal had I known that we were stuck with an age-INAPPROPRIATE toy. Hands down this was the worst experience I've ever had with a McDonalds! For the $10 we spent, I wish we had gone else where. I have written a letter of complaint to their corporate office.
This is the 3rd time within the last month or less that I have complained about McDonald's. I was just there on Friday evening with my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter and placed an order as I wanted a pumpkin pie. When we placed our order I told her 2 McChickens, 3 pumpkin pies, 1 apple pie, order of cookies, and a chocolate shake. Well, when we got to the window to get our order. I told my daughter to make sure to check it as I've had trouble here getting the right things. Sure enough we only got 2 pumpkin pies and no shake. My son-in-law took the order in and the manager (she was a red head girl) got after the employees telling them they needed to start getting the orders right. She then gave us the chocolate shake at no cost due to the mistake. Also there didn't have any apple pies and we'd have to wait 10 minutes. My son-in-law said no just give us another pumpkin and we left. Now why couldn't they tell us at the window that they didn't have any apple pies ready and it would be a wait? That McDonald's needs to get serious with their employees.
My husband and I decided to stop at this McDonald's because it was close to our house, from the start we had problems, first of all my food was cold, and dry, my husband wanted a Big Mac with extra everything on it (he paid for the extra's) one of the people making his food asked why he wanted all of that on his burger, of course we could'nt understand why that was relevant just make it, my husband became angry, which he should have and asked for a refund, then the manager got stupid, what is wrong with these people?
i was at mcdonalds sthomas today. They served my food on a dirty tray! gross... so then we asked for a clean tray and new food. they didnt apologize ONCE! until we said thanks for apologizing. Chantel a 'manager' says your welcome! can you believe that? either rude directly or rude, by not listening in the first place. so then my husband points out her rudeness, and she says no im genuinely sorry... sure you are... because that was your first instinct to say it right? Mcdonalds you need to train your managers in customer service.
Hello,
This was basically just a quick case study which I have to say was not disappointed. I wanted to see if I made the same snipe comments about you, which you make to other, how long it would take for a response. That’s all you really do. Look for a complaint, make an uneducated hurtful comment in the hope of pushing their button and get them to fire back. The interesting thing is you all know the game but still felt the need to play.
Brenda- Have a little self dignity. Don’t send me your resume. The only person’s opinions in the world that you should care about are individuals that you respect and I should not fall into that category. We don’t even know each other but you still felt insecure. That should be the first sign that 1000 + blogs might be wrong, which is eating at your subconscious.
Anita- off course you didn’t know we were keeping score. You’re not responsible for it because that would require mathematics and abstract thought.
Pobarjenkins- It is nice to hear from you. Thanks for joining the group. I don’t always value you life choices but you got spirit and if you’re going to be a [censored] bag, you might as well strive to be the number one [censored] bag. I have a good feeling you’re going to be top dog.
helpNu- I don’t know what to say. I’m a little disappointed in your lack of thought in your comment. You almost ruined my case study. I expect more.
Ok, here is the goal. Now that we are adding Pobarjenkins to the team, I really think we can get to 4, 000 blogs by January 1, 2011. helpNu is going to disagree but don’t let him talk you out of it. Keep the machine running no matter what the cost.
I'm losing to all three of you. I think I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight.
Seriously, I really don't understand how even one thousand posts in a period of a few months qualifies as an insult. It takes about thirty seconds to read and compose a response. Unless it's just difficult for Bob...?
Brenda 1, 072, Anita 609 and helpNu 651- You have a combine 2, 332 blogs in less than a year. Nice work!
There's a whole wide world out there still waiting to be explored. Is there any purpose to sending out large-scale blogs to every complaint you see or is this just your only way to express yourself? Do something else today. Meet people, help your community or join a group. I’m messing with you. You’re just too pathetic to do anything other than this...
Keep up the good fight, your changing the world.
Well that does suck that your fries were only half filled but your two year old probably shouldn't be eating a happy meal anyways. That is way too young I think to already be eating fast food. That is a shame.
I would edit your post and get rid of all your personal info.
Don't give out your address and phone number over the internet to a world of strangers.
I am not surprised about your story. I know that is infact one of the busier times; it's the breakfast to lunch change over. And that's fine, but you're right. Should have been waaaaaay more staff working to accomodate the rush.
Your experience reflects much of the same attitude that I experience from McDonald's workers in Southern California. I have noticed that the employees, for the most part, are not properly trained and I don't even find satisfaction from the corporate customer service number; they just offer a hollow apology and claim they will pass the information to the store manager. I have a long history with McDonald's - I met my husband of 25 years while we both worked at a McDonald's, and I used to take my five children there all the time. The decline in customer service has made me decide that I will never again visit a McDonald's.
I hope you received a satisfactory resolution to your issue.