Pay attention, businessperson! I’m about to share a story of good customer service, and how you too can keep your customers from spending their hard-earned money at that piker’s store down the street.

A few days ago, I skipped down to [1] my local McDonald’s hamburgery and bought an [2] Asian Salad from the drive-thru. The salad comes with a little packet of sliced almonds, which provide a nice contract in flavor and texture to the greens and sweet dressing.

At least, they’re supposed to. I don’t know what these almonds tasted like, because when I opened the packet, I found the nuts covered in blue-green mold. I don’t mean a few spores here and there. This was a fully-functioning mold city.

I didn’t have time to deal with it then, so I just threw out the almonds, checked the rest of my salad for rot, and munched away. Eventually I called [3] McDonald’s corporate headquarters and talked to a very helpful young guy who took my complaint and promised to forward my concerns to the franchisee. Okay, whatever. At least I bitched to someone.
To my pleasant suprise, I got a call Friday morning from the restaurant’s owner, a woman whose name eludes me at the moment. She was very apologetic and seemed genuinely interested in my complaint. She was pretty embarrassed that there would be problems with such a high-profile, [4] much-ballyhooed product, and she pledged to investigate the matter.

She even offered to send me some gift certificates so I can come back in for free (hopefully) non-fungus-riddled food. I haven’t gotten them yet, but I figure it’ll be five bucks. Fine by me.
I am now once again a satisfied customer, and I’ll gladly go back to that McDonald’s, because that business proved it wants my patronage.