So Linda and I went into McDonald's this morning to get some breakfast.
The guy in front of us was arguing with the manager about the amount of $ she was requesting. He tried to reason with her, outlining his own calculations:
4 Egg McMuffins at $1.50 each = $6.00
8 Apple Pies at 2/$1.00 = $4.00
Total $10.00 + Tax should be less than $11.00 (actually $10.85, I think).
Gal asked for $16.29.
He kept outlining his calculations, asking if she was following him. She said yes, still asking for $16.29. This frustrated him to no end, and he asked for a manager, which she already was. After a few times, he said, "I'm warning you, I'll call (some name of some guy that was higher up than her)." She said OK. But the bill is $16.29. Do you want the food or not? Dude just kept telling her that it was just wrong, but wouldn't tell her if he still wanted the food. This kept going for several minutes, at least about 10 minutes by the time Linda and I left.
So here's my input. Why couldn't the woman print out a receipt or a preliminary receipt showing each item and its price? He asked her to follow his calculations several times, and she never told him that he was wrong in his pricing. I'm guessing that he was wrong about the price of the actual McMuffins, but she never corrected him. (He had coupons, so I didn't know what deal he was using). Had she truly been listening to him, she would have caught that. Also, she could have deleted the whole bill, then shown him one by one as she pressed the buttons, what was being shown on the screen. Then maybe he'd see something that she'd done wrong or vice versa. Linda's guess was that perhaps she was charging for full meals instead of just the sandwiches.
The gal ended up helping us because she needed to approve my coupon while the guy called whomever, so I don't know when she eventually went back to talk to him, or if she did at all.
I wondered throughout the day how long it took the two of them to solve this problem, or if it never got solved, and he just left in frustration. He wasn't able to go to another register to ask for help, because she would still be the one needed to approve the coupon. I think that he should have just gone to another site, because we had actually come from the other location because it looked really crowded. Perhaps that store gets more customers because they're not charged over $5.00 extra for their meals there.
Customer service is a touchy kind of thing, and if neither party will look at the other side, all you have is a standstill. But simple math shouldn't be that difficult. Sheesh.
This reminds me of our "but I pushed the button" experience at Sea World San Antonio a few years ago. We were supposed to get a discount on our food with our APs, but the total seemed wrong. Dolphin Boy figured out that cashier had applied the discount only to the last item of what we ordered, not the entire bill. Dolphin Boy and the husband tried to explain that to him. Cashier dude just kept saying "but I pushed the button".
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Figure-Out-The-Check-For-Everyone needs to do the math here, but he doesn't read your blog, so that won't help.