OZARK, MO— Just in time for Christmas, one well-known fast-food chain in Ozark has checked customer service OFF its list of priorities!
Which fast-food chain fails the customer service test in Ozark? Well, the picture gave it away…
In addition to writing the Christian County Trumpet, I deliver food to customers on the popular Doordash App. I also market for Papa John’s.
Therefore, I know my way around customer service at fast food places. I’ve done more than 5,000 deliveries for Doordash in 8 different states. The vast majority of my deliveries are in Springfield, Ozark, and Nixa.
As a result, I’m in and out of more restaurants and convenience stores in a day than some people see in a month or two.
The restaurant that FAILS in customer service
It’s not that I have any real customer service expectations since Covid crushed all semblance of it.
Nowadays, lobby customers at fast food places have become increasingly invisible to understaffed employees scrambling to fulfill a growing mountain of orders in the drive thru from hell.
While I understand it would be no fun behind the counter, there are commonly used business practices that are now completely forgotten.
In short, some managers don’t give a damn.
On the naughty list this year is Wendy’s in Ozark.
I was there last night to pick up an order for a customer. The line of cars at the drive thru tipped me off. Neighboring restaurants had no such issue.
The lobby looked deserted. I walked in.
No order ready on the counter.
I went to the bathroom. In their defense, it was clean.
I came back. Several other customers had now formed a small line in front of the counter.
These customers are typically refugees from a non-moving line of vehicles at the window.
They give up and think (incorrectly) that they’ll magically get help if they see the employees behind the counter.
But, nope. The customers in line are completely invisible to employees.
I peruse the lobby as I wait. Dirty floor. Mud stains from the construction crews from lunch (It’s well past 5 p.m. now), remnants of a straw wrapper party on the floor. Icky, sugary, colored stains adorn the abandoned drink machine. (No way that thing’s got ice left in it!)
This lobby is a formality, not a priority. It’s attached to a counter and a window, where the only signs of life are.
The folks in line wait, stoic, determined, hopeful.
It’s painful to watch.
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/wendys-workers-ignore-customer/
My order arrives in stages, with great effort
A nice new kid is at the counter. He stares helplessly at me. He hasn’t learned to avoid eye contact with customers like the veteran guy staring at a computer screen for orders. The veteran struggles with the information on the screen, but manages to figure out there are, indeed, orders.
But the food comes in stages, with great effort.
He finds the first burger in my order and places it into an open brown paper bag on the counter.
This won’t be good.
Manager doesn’t care!
Suddenly, the manager emerges, a guy with a beard and a ponytail, wearing a headset. He saunters past the line of guests and walks placidly out the door.
Wow.
I quickly walk outside to get my hotbag. I don’t want my order cooling on the counter one item at a time.
The manager is slouched against the outside wall in the darkness. He nods affirmatively in my direction as I pass him. Not sure if he’s apologizing silently or just acknowledging me because he has to.
I grab my bag and head back inside. The manager has disappeared.
“There’s a guy who truly hates his job,” I say to myself. “He’s given up. He’s done. Damn the handbook. I don’t freakin’ care!”
Back inside, I place the brown bag with one burger in it inside my hotbag. I mumble something to the veteran employee and the new kid about keeping the food reasonably warm as it arrives off the line.
The food arrives. One. At. A. Time.
Drinks are checked. Then, another drink is realized. It appears. A child’s pre-packaged milk.
“Could you please seal these bags?” I say to the counter guy. He complies. (Novel idea. Seal the bags to insure safety and… oh, well. You get the picture.)
Call in a customer service complaint? Or…
Back in my car, I’m delivering the order, 3 minutes away. I’m disgusted. I want to call Wendy’s corporate and complain, but why should I have to take time to do that while I’m working?
But, that’s who your CCT editor is. He’s the guy who gets involved. Not like a karen, but like a hero who cares about the culture and wants to help it self-correct, if possible. I’m the guy who’d direct traffic if I came across a vehicle accident on a busy highway before emergency crews arrive.
The citizen who goes out of his way to help and make a positive difference.
So, I keep the Doordash App on, pick up another order, and Google the customer care line for Wendy’s.
When I called the number labeled “Wendy’s Customer Care line.” 1-888-624-8140 the real problem emerged!
The issue with customer service in a store lobby pales in comparison to the Ocean of a Problem within the customer service department corporately!!!
Oh. My. Cheeseburger! What in the french fries franchise is going on with customer service???
Thank you for calling Wendy’s customer care. We look forward to hearing from you. Press 1 for survey, Press 2 for Wendy’s employee. Questions about menu, press 3. Feeback about an experience at a store? Press 4.
If you press 4, you enter a marathon of hold music. The music is so creepy, it could be the soundtrack for a horror movie.
After 18 minutes of horror music that made me want to enter a mental asylum, I hung up. I literally had to play my radio to drown out the emotionally disturbing hold music.
I looked up another number for customer service related to Wendy’s. 1-800-256-8595. I was on hold a mere 5ish minutes before a guy who identified himself as Linden picked up. His voice had all the joy of a depressed undertaker on a rainy Monday morning.
After explaining that I couldn’t get through to customer care, he blandly remarked that he couldn’t help. He was part of a third party from hell company called Cortex. “We handle calls about employees,” he said, vaguely. “Not about customer service.”
He referred me to the number I’d just endured for 18 plus minutes.
Some folks just don’t get it…
“Not an option, Linden,” I said. I explained what happened.
He again said he had no other options.
I clung to the conversation, reminding Linden that he was being paid by the hour, that he wasn’t offering help, that I didn’t have access to the internet complaint form while driving deliveries, on and on. Told him Dave Thomas would be rolling over in his grave.
“You need to get another job, Linden,” I finally said, exasperated. “You need to get to a place where customers actually receive help.”
I waited. Then, said, “You can hang up on me now. I won’t be hanging up.”
He did.
THE NEXT DAY…
I called customer care again this morning.
The line immediately hung up when I pressed 4 for customer feedback.
So, I used my wife’s phone.
Pressed 4.
Jalissa answered. She got all the details. She explained Wendy’s franchises control 90 percent of the locations nationwide and the company manages 10 percent.
In response to my complaint that no one answered the customer care line, Jalissa said their customer care line has about 50 people taking calls for the entire nation. So??? All I’m asking is for someone to answer the phone.
She said they would assign me a case number. They got my name and phone number. They said they would go above the manager and see what they can do.
We’ll see.
District Manager Replies to my case
As a result, the next evening after Jalissa assigned me a case number, I got a call from Kim, who identified herself as the District Manager for the Wendy’s in Ozark.
She listened as I explained how I wasn’t angry or upset, but that I believed the manager in Ozark needed some cheering up and encouraging.
“I believe the manager had given up on trying. He likely dreads coming into work,” I observed. “I think you guys can do some soul searching and work it out.”
Kim thanked me after a detailed description of the event.
While I’m not sure she can improve on the horrific customer care line, I’m confident she can make a positive impact on the local store.
To summarize, please be respectful and helpful out there. Merry Christmas!
Happy Ending
To conclude this story, I picked up an order at Wendy’s in Ozark again on Christmas Eve.
The weather outside was frightful.
The floors inside the lobby were equally frightful.
But that’s expected during snowy, slushy Saturday holiday weather.
The long-haired manager guy was again in the background, headset on, looking somber.
However, he and an entire crew were doing a fantastic job.
The counter girl communicated well and informed me promptly of my order status.
A husky man in a manager shirt was present as well.
I left a voice mail to Kim, the district manager, on my way to my delivery.
“Much better situation. The crew is doing a much improved job. Thank you for listening to my observations. And have a Merry Christmas!”
2 responses to “Is customer service now dead at one of Ozark’s restaurants?”
“But, that’s who your CCT editor is. He’s the guy who gets involved. Not like a Karen, but like a hero who cares about the culture and wants to help it self-correct, if possible.”
Exactly like a Karen, but just far more full of yourself, Johnny. I wish I could get back the five minutes it took to read this long-winded whinge, but unfortunately, I’m left with the memory of a man complaining on his tabloid news site about a busy restaurant in Ozark, Missouri — a man so shocked, so aghast that a Wendy’s restaurant, an oasis of fried food nestled among a string of terrible joints nobody wants to eat at, was somehow busy at dinnertime. I love reading the Trumpet for its ability to articulate the most wild and weird dumbassery this community has to offer, but this certainly takes the cake.
Thank you, Johnny. You’re truly fighting the good fight with this one.
What you did with the five minutes to reply was reason enough for me.