PFB Investigates - Papa John's Poor Customer Service - The Next Chapter

There were multiple lines of contact going on at the same time, and
you really don't know to which one the business development guy was
responding. In an organization the size of PJ's (and it's pretty good
sized), we really don't know that Sean actually did escalate the call,
and we don't know if Sean has the ability to intercept the other lines
of communication. It could have been the communications director guy
who forwarded the email to the business development guy and said "fix
this." When customers start communicating through different channels
that can happen. Different departments start working the problem and
don't know about it until they connect at the customer.

Then there's the whole "I've got you between the devil and the deep
blue sea" thing. Is this a customer who says "I'm done" only to see
how hard you'll come after him, and then make a big production when
you don't, or is it really someone who wants to walk away and wants no
futher communication, and will complain when you try to call.
Personally, given the amount of noise made, I'd intperpret it as a
customer who was wanting you to come and try to recover, and would
make a bigger case if you let them walk away.

I just don't think it's asking a lot for customer service folks and
customers to respond nicely to each other. I personally don't think
something to the effect of "you didn't think I was important before so
I'm not going to talk to you now" to be nice.

1. If, after reading the first report and my comments on that post
plus this update and then listening to the voicemail left for me, all
you can think about is how i'm supposedly being mean to some poor
corporate folks who are just trying to help, well, I don't even know
what to say to that other than you're wrong.

2. As for two departments working the problem independent of each
other, I have additional information on that point which I'll share
tomorrow when I offer my thoughts on the voicemail.

3. Finally, with regards to the idea that I might be playing hard to
get just to see how hard they'll come after me, nothing could be
further from the truth. In fact, when I finally got through to Sean
in customer service on Tuesday, I made it VERY clear that,after all
the hoops I had gone through already to talk to a live person, I was
no longer in customer mode. Instead, I was in PlanetFeedback mode and
I was fascinated by the enormous gap between what Papa Johns proclaims
as world class service and what I had just experienced over the past
two weeks. I suggest you go back and read the question/answers that I
posted in my first report - you'll notice EVERY question I asked had
nothing to do with my desires as their customer and everything to do
with their customer service process and how it broke down.

Seems they are still not wanting to discuss the original issue. But
they are willing to sweep this under the table for two free calzones.

From the tone of "Luis'" voice he sounded bored like it was an effort
to say he would call you back when you could discuss this issue
together, Instead he chose to brush you off and figure two calzones
will bring your business back.

WTG Papa John's...great way to show how little you think of your
customer and their inquiries/questions.

Well, I think that the two free calzones is more than fair, but the
man sounds like hes in pain just making the call.

I can't listen to the voicemail at work, but my opinion thus far is
this: I"m always surprised when a business OWNER doesn't act like a
business OWNER.

I think, at this point, they have written you off.

They SHOULDN'T do that, of course. But I'm guessing they have.

As for the voice mail from the franchisee: every customer is
different. I'll bet there are plenty of people who would be happy to
get the 2 free calzones. Others would be upset that the voice mail
didn't carry any form of apology or ownership for the problem. Some
might want more than 2 calzones and feel that, if only they offered 10
calzones, all would be right. Others wouldn't be happy with anything
short of the bad employee being fired.

Me, I'm not big on the need for the word "sorry," but I know many are
and this voicemail is not going to work. For me, I'd want the
franchisee to explain to me why this happened and to tell me what he's
personally doing to ensure it doesn't happen again. And I'd want to
talk to the business development guy, to get him to give me the same
explanations.

But that's me. And every customer's needs are different.