(This is a follow-up on my original entry at http://piamagalona.multiply.com/journal/item/34)
Last Friday, Jun 15, I received a text message at 10:56AM...
"Hi, Ms Pia Magalona. This is rommel Ong, operations manager of McDonald's. I just would like to know if I can call you and apologize regarding your bad experience on our delivery. Looking forward to your reply. Thank you." [sic]
Well, I returned Mr Ong's call but couldn't get through at first. An hour later, he called me. Mr Ong is a very jovial man, and is easy to get along with. He was very apologetic about my experience and I took the opportunity to repeat myself: I am only after the best quality of service your store can provide. I explained to him that from the customer's point of view, what good is spending so much on advertising when the best form of promotion for the store would be their patrons' satisfaction and loyalty.
In fact, I said, my three youngest kids and I had just "driven thru" their Marcos Hi-way (Marikina) branch just then for lunch, and true enough, I realized as I exited the drivethru, the Happy Meal™ toys were NOT in the bag. Hmph! So I had to back-up again to get into the parking area and since there wasn't any parking available, I had to ask the "parking attendant" to please claim the toys for me. (No, there wasn't a security guard that I could see.)
Ok, just to make myself clear again, I am not a whiner, I don't "look for the bad" and I am what is called a HALF-FULL type of person. I see the good in everything, but then again, I am also an assertive person, so I cannot live with mediocrity. Besides, it's my money, right?
In the end, we agreed that they ought to concentrate on the TRAINING of their personnel, and that I would update my blog/s.
So, whether or not their service improves is all up to them. He is well aware, based on the comments to that posting of mine, that I am not the only one complaining. Mr Ong said he was grateful for our feedback, and I told him I, too, appreciated his call. He also asked me to save his number for future reference.
5.31.2007
5.24.2007
@Royal Park Station1 Boracay
FM is on assignment w 28 other members of the Camera Club of the Philippines (CCP) and this time he brought me along to the island of Boracay. Last time we were here was more than 10 years ago and boy! were we suprised when we arrived today: so much has changed! It's very commercial now and it feels like we're either in Pasay or back home in Antipolo--minus the beach of course, but you get my drift...
5.23.2007
"Help Find Madeleine McCann"
I received this in my Inbox. First thing I did was check its validity on snopes.com and it checked out so I'm passing it on...----- Original Message -----
From: Sue Pattinson
To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 11:03 PM
Subject: Help find Madelaine McCann
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 1:53 PM
Subject: FW: Help find Madelaine McCann
Please read this message and pass it on!
As you are aware my niece is still missing and I am asking everyone I
know to send this as a chain letter i.e. you send it to everyone you
know and ask them to do the same, as the story is only being covered
in Britain, Eire and Portugal. We don't believe that she is in
Portugal anymore and need to get her picture and the story across
Europe as quickly as possible. Suggestions are? welcome.
Phil McCann
End of letter. I did more research and found the official website Bring Madeleine Home where I found the official poster as seen above.
4.14.2007
"Pa-pa-ra-pa-pa hate(?) ko 'to!" DIAL 8-MCDO
For starters, let's get it clear that THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FOOD which we all LOVE (For the benefit of the Chubakerz reading this) so please don't be asking why we still will continue to patronize them.I'm ranting about my latest experience with them regarding SERVICE. Delivery service this time.
You see, some of our kids live on Katipunan so they always have food delivered to their unit from different restaurants.
I happened to sleep over at the unit Wednesday-Thursday so I have personal knowledge of this incident.
We dialled for dinner and one of the items was a double-cheeseburger with one of my daughters giving them the direction to please make it PLAIN, meaning no garnish, which is what she always orders from them. So sue her, she doesn't like onions.
An ADDITIONAL order of another double cheeseburger was added within minutes of ending the first call, but that would have to have totally no bearing on the first order which was previously closed and included nuggets, one-piece chicken, two-piece chicken, etc.
When the order came, neither of the two double-cheeseburgers was plain. So my daughter who ordered it breathed a heavy sigh because we have this running gag that NEVER--as in NEVER--in our entire history of drive-thrus at their Katipunan branch have we ever driven away with a perfect takeout bag. Which--of course--you usually found out too many meters too late. This apparently applies to their delivery service as well. But I digress.
I asked my daughter to either eat the darned thing already, or call them back and ask for a replacement with the correct order. She said it would take too long to wait for it to arrive because they'd already experienced this before. I said, hey, either way it's your right to get what you paid for.
To make a long story (long, because of the wait on the phone), the person on the other end argued with her for the longest time on why she shouldn't replace the sandwich.
In conclusion, I only have this to say: please use your common sense. We are regular patrons of all these fastfood chains and we are grateful they exist. But WHY OH WHY, would we--out of the blue--decide to make something up for what? A free burger? OMG. That is so low.
Our bill for that dinner was over 700bucks--which is no joke--plus we also had our breakfast delivered that morning--another 600bucks--so in all, they'd already gotten that amount from us in just one day.
Couldn't they just SERVICE the CUSTOMER? That's my money you're getting, for heaven's sake. That's all I'm saying.
In the end, I asked the woman on the other end of the line: "So, what you are saying is that your crew is PERFECT, can never make a mistake, and I--the customer--am LYING just to get a free sandwich? Ok. So you would rather put the name of your multi-national company on the line instead of just giving me customer satisfaction and getting good feedback. Fine," I said, "I'll just hang up now and blog about it then."
Maybe that's why I have several blogs, and I'm going to post this on each one.
Which is what I'm doing now. Heck. After I hung up (that's al I said to the woman, remember my daughter was the one arguing with her previously) with her, I figured: hey! We shouldda just called and said there was a sandwich missing! Because the delivery man just dumped everything on the table anyway, without checking each item. Next time this happens, that's what you do, ok? I told my kids.
That's a laugh. Here I am, bringing up my children on the honesty-is-the-best-policy routine and I have become so desperate just to get something that is rightfully mine. I was just trying to use the situation to teach my daughter to stand up for her rights and get the meal she actually ordered, but I guess the Filipino way of "the customer is NEVER right" has failed me. Again. C'mon, this isn't the first time this has happened. It makes you think: so does it REALLY pay to be honest?
Ok. I'm not even going to start talking about the country's leaders.
In the final, final end. I'm just not MAD anymore. Just jaded about the whole thing. E, ganun talaga sa atin, eh. I'm not into the whole maki-baka thing, so I'm not really raising an uproar about this. In true Pinoy fashion: "Just wanted to share. La lang."
Pa-pa-ra-pa-pa...
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