We go to Olive Garden several times a month. Usually it’s the one in south Fort Worth near our house but often when we’re traveling too because we know it’s a good meal that even our son enjoys. This 4 yr old doesn’t want fast food, he prefers OG if you ask him.
So the other day we placed an order that I picked up for take out. It was a pretty straightforward order from their build a pasta 3 course meal thing they have going on right now. My wife looked on the website, found a vegetable pasta (the pictured showed it with zucchini and bell peppers), a sauce and dessert.
After I got home, we realized the pasta and sauce was not at all what we thought it was. It was the new tri-color vegetable penne pasta with tomato pomodoro sauce. But what we had was NOTHING like the picture on the site. So I called to tell them it wasn’t right…but in fact, it was. They explained to me what each of the sauces were and that the vegetable pasta didn’t actually have vegetables (like the picture showed), that was a different sauce we didn’t purchase. The girl on the phone was very nice about it and immediately asked if I’d like to talk to the manager about it. I said that would be great.
Once Jake, the manager, got on the phone, he apologized for the confusion and offered to redo the order for me next time I came in or that night. I elected for that night and went to pick it up.
Here’s the part where all customer service oriented businesses need to listen up. The problem was addressed before I really even had to explain and a solution was offered before I asked. And then they went above and beyond.
When I arrived, the people doing togo orders knew I had the messed up order. The girl started going through the bag and realized there was more than just the pasta in there. Just as she did, Jake came out from the back and happily walked me through what was in the bag which was the new pasta, a salad, breadsticks and a piece of cake that wasn’t even for sale yet.
He thanked me for letting them know of the problem and told me how he hoped they corrected it and offered some extra incentives to make up for the inconvenience. Best part, he was real about it. This was no script.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked. I was a little shocked that they would redo even though it was technically our fault for ordering the wrong thing. And then to go above and beyond and replace my entire order with an added bonus…that was the icing on the cake for me (no pun intended).
So thank you Olive Garden, Jake in particular, for recognizing customer service and treating someone the right way when it would have been much easier to ignore the problem. You had no idea I visited several times a month and even less idea I would write up a blog post about it. You did the right thing because you wanted to and that’s a big deal in my book.
By the way, the new Chai Triple Berry Cake thing they have…delicious. 😀
