Okay, how would you handle this?
Near my work is a great coffee shop. A well-known ex-boxer, an Italian man with a large personality, owns the shop. His main shop has been in business since the 50’s and has a world-renowned reputation as they really do make excellent coffee. The baristas who work for him are generally very good indeed.
However, I am a soy drinker. And my order is a always a large soy flat white. Nothing too hard about this, right. Well here is where the problems start. Most of the time, I get what I order but sometimes, I get a normal sized coffee in a large cup with about an inch and a half of foam on top. If I catch this at the shop, I make a point of letting the staff know. The excuse usually is something like “wow that soy milk really does foam up a lot” or something along these lines. But they’re happy to top up my coffee and I walk out of the shop feeling as if I got what I paid for. But there are times when it is not until I am back at work before I discover I’ve been given a ‘dud’ coffee.
So, this morning, I went and got my usual. The shop was very busy and when mine was made, I grabbed it and squeezed out the door. When I got back to work, I opened the coffee to discover I’d received another ‘dud’. I made an exasperated noise which was heard by one of my work colleagues. He asked if I had a problem and I explained to him what had happened. His response kind of pissed me off more than not getting what I ordered.
He said “oh, I wouldn’t complain about something like that. I wouldn’t want to be seen as a whinger.” I said I disagreed with him because if I pay for a thing, then I expect to get what I pay for.
His response to this was to say, “Oh well, its all good. You’ve got a nice cup of coffee regardless.”
Again, I said I disagreed with him. Sure, it might only be a cup of coffee but if you let something like this slip, then where do you draw the line. This attitude of ‘I don’t want to be seen as a whinger’ is one of the reasons why I think customer services, in a lot of case, is getting worse and worse. Another sad excuse I’ve heard is the ‘they won’t do anything anyway’ one. Of course, the business won’t do anything about a problem if they’re not aware of it. I mean, duh!
Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but as far as I’m concerned, I paid for a large coffee therefore I should have received a large coffee. What say you, JU?