The Unhappy Ending

I witnessed one of the worst displays of customer service I have seen in a while yesterday. There was a very unfriendly exchange between a waitress, two managers, and a customer at, of all places, Friendly’s.

At the center of the dispute was a Happy Ending sundae. This name always makes me smirk – not only is it an extra offered at an Oriental massage parlor, it is also a dessert item at a family restaurant. Insert banana-crème joke here …

The family – a father, mother, 5-ish year-old daughter, and toddler – at the table next to mine had finished their meal and ordered dessert. The toddler was not going to eat a full sundae and the mother only wanted something small, so she wanted to take the sundae that came free with the kid’s meal and buy a scoop of ice cream for the kid. The waitress brought her a full-size sundae. At the end of the meal, the waitress presented them with a full-size bill – her sundae was charged at it’s full menu price.

I didn’t hear the original order, but I heard the ensuing discussion. Both the father and mother insisted that the waitress offered the option of the mother taking the child’s dessert. The waitress insisted that she gave them exactly what they requested. Since the desserts were eaten, the opportunity to send the food back had already expired. The father, however, wanted the bill to reflect what they thought they had ordered. It got slightly heated, and she left to get a manager. First came the assistant manager. She seemed confused by the whole deal and was no help. She left to get the store manager.

The store manager also got into a lengthy discussion with the family. The idea of charging just for a scoop came up. Apparently a single scoop of Friendly’s ice cream costs $2. The father said he’d pay that, but the manager said she couldn’t do it. At that point, the issue came down to 70 cents and principle. The manager wouldn’t budge. The guy finally said, “OK, you go away and I will pay this bill, then I will never return here again.” He paid, they left a tip (which surprised me, considering all they went through), and walked out.

The first thing that bugs me about this is that the waitress was also our waitress, and since she was avoiding the area during the managerial assistance we were delayed getting our dessert orders in. Second, and I guess more important, is that the manager had an opportunity to make a customer happy by taking less than three bucks off a bill, and instead entered into a somewhat heated argument in the middle of a restaurant full of customers. I would contend that the drop in tips and diminished likelihood of return of some of those customers – myself included – will, in the long run, cost the store and it’s employees more than three quarters.

I know it did, as I dropped a buck off the tip I would have left. That was, after all, a long unFriendly wait for dessert.