A Customer Serices Transgression

It's all about the bottom line. Shareholders want a profit. Honestly,
We eat to much anyway and the majority of us can stand to reduce our
intake. Salad or not.

I don't understand your complaint. You asked a question and you got
an honest answer. What exactly is your problem with the response?
And from whom do you want an apology? And for what?

I would suggest making a nice fresh homemade salad for yourself and
your mother. This way you can portion out exactly how much you want.

You will be shocked how quickly you can toss up a salad!


good day

What I do not understand is when the customer complainted why the
employee not pick up the phone and get the CEO on the phone. OR if it
was after hours call the CEO on his house phone or his personal cell
phone. I am sure the CEO would have taken that call.
Now back to reality - many, many front line employees and managers
have no say or even input into many decisions. At my job if I call the
CEO to give input on say pricing not only would I not get through but
my boss could very well get a upset phone call. So why do people still
choose to take it on frontline employees. My reading is that the OP is
more upset at the smaller size so do not take it out on the employee.
Just plain rude. Write, email, call upper mgt. the ones who make the
decisions.

I know you're not going to like this, but everywhere is being hit by
the shrink ray. Just look at a jar of mayo. It's not 32 oz anymore.
It's 30. Or a "gallon" of orange juice. Not quite a gallon.

Restaurants are being hit by the shrink ray too. Some used to give two
sides, plus a salad. Now they only do one side. Sometimes we have to
make sacrifices in a crappy economy.

I'm intrigued by the number of letters on PFB about portion sizes
decreasing and/or costs going up. We're at a point where one or the
other is going to happen to just about everything. Companies cannot
continue to eat the ever rising costs themselves, they are in the
business of making money. So, they either have to downsize the
product, or raise prices. I personally prefer it when companies
downsize the product. This way I can continue sticking to my budget
and still buy the occasional splurge. Who wants to spend $8 on a half
gallon of ice cream for instance when the company can downsize the
container a bit and keep the cost to the consumer the same.

I suppose if this server was rude about your question, I can
understand your being a bit upset. Although, my first thought is that
this may have been the 100th time this person had been asked about the
new portion sizes. Regardless, it sounds like he answered your
question, it just may not have been what you wanted to hear.

Curtis W.,

I am confident that Panera will get back with you. Please do the same
so we know what they say.

The gentleman working the line sounds like he shared what information
he had as best he could probably knowing the message was not going to
be received well.

This is a question best responded to by a manager who might have
explained it a little differently and maybe even made a one time
exception.

Thanks for sharing.

BillR.

I suppose they could raise prices to keep portions larger, would you
be ok with that?

How about some empathy instead of an "unpleasant" response?

If Panera is going to change something that a customer is used to
getting in a way that doesn't favor the customer, the least the person
who deals with the customer can do is acknowledge the concerns of the
customer. Instead, he just robotically states that they're "cracking
down" on portion control. That's what I believe she's asking for an
apology for.

Honestly, I don't get why these things are so difficult for you to
understand.

Again, just from the words he relayed, there was nothing "unpleasant"
in how he said it, aside from not being what they wanted to hear.

Why should a minimum wage grunt be responsible to take the heat for a
decision that he had nothing to do with? If she really didn't like
it, did she or her mother ask for a manager? If he had an attitude
too, then I might be able to see the frustration, but that didn't
happen here.

Not really sure why concepts like these are so tough for YOU to grasp!

Nor does not hearing what you want to hear. I'm sure the OP didn't
want to hear that portion sizes were being strictly controlled and
equated that to rude.