We've had a love-hate relationship with Zaxby's since the very beginning. You see, we prefer crispy french fries to floppy french fries, and it absolutely amazes me that not once, even when we have always requested extra crispy french fries, were the french fries actually crispy. I don't know what the kitchen is like, but it's almost as if the cooks have no control over cooking and it's all automated somehow.
However, floppy french fries is pretty much an issue at all Zaxby's locations, so at least you know what you're going to get and consistency is typically something that customers appreciate with businesses that have multiple locations. With that said, my spouse and I visited this location for the last time this past Sunday. We placed an order through their app for curbside pickup, picked up our food and after returning home realized it was not as expected. In fact, competing with McDonald's for the carelessness of fulfilling a customer order correctly, is this location that somehow couldn't bother training their employees to make sure salad dressing was included with their famous Zalads. And today, it's the Saturday following so exactly one week later and I still don't have my money back, but it's not for lack of trying. It feels like Zaxby's has put up a barrier to resolving this issue with every escalation.
What have I done in an attempt to resolve this issue? Well, initially I reached out directly to Zaxby's customer service via Twitter because the restaurant was incredibly busy when we visited and I didn't want to call in the midst of a rush and after spending the time, money and effort going to Zaxby's for our food, we were in a position that we had to go someplace else to eat and the hungry monster was growing. I grew up in family-owned and operated restaurants, have worked in and trained staff in restaurants for the early part of my career, so I try to avoid calling restaurants during busy meal periods Just out of respect. During that initial request I asked to speak with the franchise owner or a regional manager, a request that to this day has been promised over and over, yet not been fulfilled.
I've spent some time every single day since trying to get my refund without having to physically drive back to the location, as well as to discuss the challenges with my order to a member of leadership so that they can revel in their failure and flap their lips with endless meaningless apologies. I've reached out to Zaxby's through their social media representatives, and that has not resulted in resolution. I reached out to Zaxby's customer service by telephone. A very nice representative named Jessica has been trying to assist me, although the last I heard from her she promised to call from a corporate consultant sometime yesterday and the corporate consultant clearly didn't get the memo. It seems that she really wants to help, but the leadership at Zaxby's have completely left her powerless to be able to do anything. I've reached out to and made contact with Michelle Morgan, their Chief People Person, and although I'm certain she passed my information along for someone to take action, I'm pretty confident that she didn't do anything to close the loop because I didn't hear anything back from her nor receive a resolution yet. It kind of feels like Zaxby's corporate has little to no ability to resolve any problem at the restaurant level, but I currently have no other choice but to continue following up in the best manner that I know how until I am made whole.
So, I did call the restaurant today to see if the operations manager might happen to be there. They were not, but I was surprised to be told that the operations manager was on vacation for a week, something which the general manager, Gerald, didn't mention. I did message Gerald asking him if he knew when the operations manager would return from her vacation. Although he told me that he likes to take care of customer issues in his off time, he was apparently off work for a couple days earlier this week and didn't respond to my text message returning his call from Monday. And I doubt that I will hear back from the message I sent today until he returns to work, so I'm honestly glad he's taking some time for his personal life, but it sucks being a customer of this location.
Still unresolved, but this is a pretty good example of how completely ineffective leadership can lose a customer permanently. Too bad I'm now having to try to escalate to the BBB and sharing the experience. If only Zaxby's had an opportunity to fix this right? read more