No Apology, Dale Hansen Practice Admininstrator, Family Hearing & Balance Center

…so as I was eating my order of wings, which I order almost every night, I noticed that something was wrong. They didn’t look right. First it bothered me that they didn’t look right, and second, it bothered me that I noticed they didn’t look right because I order them so consistently. Maybe I should order something different for dinner. I called the server over and asked her how many wings came in an order?  She told me ten. I asked her to count my order. She did so twice, as her bottom lip came out, and her eyebrows went up letting out a “humph!” She went to the kitchen and had them make me another order to properly fill out my original request. No apology.

I couldn’t let this go. I asked her if it was my job to count my order? She didn’t answer. I pushed further, and pointed out that I almost paid for an order that fell short of our agreement. She admitted that they made a mistake. No apology. I confirmed that a cook looked at this, a manager, who’s job is to check every order before it goes out, and you missed this detail. She admitted again that they had made a mistake. No apology.

I talked with the manager. “What do you want me to do, take them out back and beat them?”, she stated sarcastically. I am a regular so I realized that I must have lost my guest card with no one advising me of that. She, too, admitted that they made a mistake. No Apology.

Please understand that I am not one to complain. I never do, but during this meal, I was in the middle of a discussion with a friend about service. I was telling him how service within the hearing loss industry is all about relationship. It is consistent listening paired with consistent problem solving. We are never perfect, but a failure in responsive service really reduces a person’s experience, and therefore, a reduction in trust. It can be very small details. Quality of sound, or the resiliency of hardware can bring a person back, or not. It depends on how the practice puts processes in place to respond to the unknowns, understand when they missed a detail, and providing a solution with a simple apology.  Not just an admission of guilt.

The difference in how much my wing order was shorted? Maybe 25 cents. It wasn’t the obvious badly cooked meal. They saw it as not a big deal. No offer of discount (which I would have turned down). No apology (which I would have accepted). They just stopped short of telling me to stop complaining, and eat (verbally, though their faces were saying it the entire time). That probably cost them more than 25 cents, and with no regret.