My Fat Burger Story!
A few nights back, I ordered a Fat Burger.
I don’t eat fast food much, but when I feel like getting a stomach ache I indulge in burger from a Fast Food joint. This time it happened to be a Fat Burger.
Anyways, to my Fat Burger story.
I was at Fat Burger, waiting in line for my burger. Since they cook the burgers (they are not in a burger tray like McDonalds), they take a little longer.
While I was waiting, I noticed the lady making my burger looked into the mayonnaise bin with an estranged look. What was she looking at? I am a germ freak, so what happened next freaked me out a little bit.
She called over the chef to have a look in the mayonnaise bin!
Remember, my burger is still sitting there just been made and she hasn’t given it to me yet.
The next thing that happens pierces a feeling of “sickness’ into my stomach. Both the chef and the woman look at each other with a look of confusion and the chef instructs here to throw out the mayonnaise bin and bring out a new one.
They then both look at their hands...inspect them...apparently looking for something. To me this meant that there could have been something from their hands that could have gone into the mayonnaise, my initial assumption “blood”.
Upon throwing out an entire container of mayonnaise, the lady handed me my burger.
Did they not think I was watching what was going on? I was standing right there!!!
I was walking back to sit down and I had second thoughts...
“Like HELL I am eating this contaminated burger.”
After a few seconds of reconsideration I went back up to the counter and approached the area where the chef and the lady making the burgers were. I asked...
“I am just wondering what you guys were looking at within the mayonnaise jar before you threw it out?”
They looked stunned and guilty of something. They both look at each other and the lady said...
“What are your talking about?”
The chef then stepped in, “OH, it was empty.”. Then I asked them why they were looking at their hands after then.
The both looked at each other and failed to give a response. The manager was there now and she said:
“Your burger is fine!”.
I am not one for complaining, in fact if I see a hair in my food at a restaurant I will never complain. It is just not in my nature, however this one pissed me off more than I think any experience at any restaurant. I felt that in some way my own well-being was being jeopardized by what I was eating.
I asked for a refund. They obliged. They took the food back and I went on my way...but this event is not over.
As a potential repeat customer, this has diminished the Fat Burger brand in my eyes. In fact, I now associate that negative event with the entire chain. It is not logical, but that is how an entire brand can be represented by one negative event.
I am sure my experience could be awesome the next 100 times I visit Fat Burger and perhaps even that same one, however this left a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended).
Will I ever go to a Fat Burger again? Probably not for awhile and definitely not back to that one.
The point I am getting at is...
YOU ARE YOUR BRAND. THE PEOPLE THAT WORK FOR YOU ARE YOUR BRAND. And the services/products you provide people are with are your brand.
It is very hard to create a quality brand and it is really easy to lose it (one event in fact). Remember this with all of your activities online and if you truly care about your brand, you will be diligent about these single events not happening.
And if they DO happen, do something about it for your customer or they won’t be a customer for long.
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Over something like this I would have flat out gone off on somebody. This would be one of those times where my mother would not want to be in public with me and my brother would be laughing so hard he would be on the floor.
For some reason burgers just don't sound so good right now lol
Trust me Ty, I was pretty livid although not at the point of quite showing it. Things like this don't settle with me that well and if they didn't do anything at all (ie. take the food back) things would have gotten ugly lol.
I can't believe they tried to hand you that burger to begin with. You should have told them to eat the thing lol
Great point Kyle.. at the end of the day it is all about people...how you treat them will determine if you succeed or not...basic values like honesty and integrity go a long way...I wonder what would have happened for example, if they had really been honest about what they had seen in the mayonnaise jar which led them to inspect their hands ( maybe not all the gross details, but just the acknowledgment that something was wrong!). Perhaps you would have chosen to stay and choose another menu item, or still left but with a different feeling about the whole chain. Being honest when you have made a mistake is tough..but at the end of the day people are more forgiving..
Exactly, if they were upfront with me I probably would have been fine with whatever they said. But if they were up front in the first place, they would have told me they had to remake the burger before they handed it to me because the mayo was contaminated.
There are definitely things that they could have done and there are definitely things we can all do to create and keep our brand and hopefully this (although it may seem irrelevant) will put some relevance in your day to day brand management activities.
Remember, when you are building a site in a niche, one of your goals is to build a brand.
Burgers aside, peoples impression of YOUR brand is crucial to the success or failure of your business.
People scrutinize the satisfaction ratings of sellers on eBay when shopping- that rating is basically a measure of the quality of that seller's "brand". You are far less likely to buy from someone with a low satisfaction rating.
In IM a customer may not have access to a "satisfaction rating" on your site, but one bad experience will probably have them looking elsewhere to do business. Work hard to "over deliver", avoid losing them in the first place. (like WA)
Absolutely...there are some things that are out of your control, but most of your brand perception is within your control. Brand is built over months and years and can vacate you overnight if you don't consider your brand when decision making.
Our focus here has always been to build a better community and better service for our members and that has been the root of our decision making process, not money.
We have a place called Bobs Burgers here in Seattle, the place is off the hook for a fantastic burger!
Always a good dining experience at this burger joint.
Bob's burgers...I will have to remember that next time I am down in Seattle! I frequent the Mac & Chesse place on PIke Street Market. That stuff is unbelievable and is worth the trip into Seattle!
I'm not familiar with the brand, however the name "fat burger" isn't appetizing to me.
Whenever something like that happens in a restaurant, they lose me, no matter how nice they are.
Recently had an experience in a bistro that delivered a salad with a big hair in it. Could happen to anyone, but it turned me
off. Probably won't go back, even though they were apologetic and accommodating. Had another experience in a restaurant that gets a lot of good press for their creativity. The waiter suggested a pasta made with pumpkin and black olives. I ordered it, but couldn't eat it because it was god awful. Bad combination. Outspoken as I am, I let the chef know I wasn't happy. They not only charged me for the dish, but they packed it up so I could take it home with me, telling me that it was the most popular item on their menu. Result, I won't go back there, and I'll tell my friends. Hey chef, take a hint, the customer couldn't eat it. Wouldn't have taken much to make me happy, and they could have preserved the relationship.
Some businesses are so arrogant, they will abuse customers and not care. Maybe one person can slip through the cracks, but too many of them will ruin your business. It's absolutely important that your customers are treated well and leave happy.
Restaurants are particularly vulnerable, because it's easy to turn people off. And your help can ruin you.
Customer satisfaction: important thing to always keep in mind.
Thanks Kyle.
You can't let your pride get in the way of your brand. Perhaps if people are complaining there is a reason for it and you have to make a case against your own business and how to improve it.
Being stubborn and having too much pride in business is a BAD thing. If you can't take constructive criticism or can't deal with straight up criticism, you will not be able to improve as a business. Sure there is such a thing as a bad customer, but generally speaking you cannot assume that all people are wrong and bad like some business owners (lots of chefs) do.
Never had a Fat Burger before but after your story not looking forward to ever try one lol. Trust & Honesty should have been handled right then and there from the manager at the very least, having customers blindsided by that hygiene issue is not the way to run a business I totally agree Brand is something you as the marketer take pride in and acknowledge your mistakes, Great Advice Kyle
And the problem here is the people on the front lines will never report this to anyone because they would probably lose their job. Instead, the people running the marketing have no idea about what is happening within their company and this is causing some widespread branding effects. Think of this one article alone!
They definitely should have handled that differently. You should have been informed of the problem(or maybe jut told that there was one) and they should have offered you a free remake of your burger AND a refund.
I think that you should make sure that the head office knows of your experience. Perhaps this will result in a some retraining by the franchise manager. With any luck they will realize that there may be a customer service issue that needs to be remediated.
I agree with Labman....they definitely could have handled the situation better so as not to lose a customer and the word of mouth (which is now negative - just look at how many people here you turn off to them). Unfortunately, all the training in the world doesn't always help crabby people learn good customer relations either. I would have made sure everyone washed their hands in full view as well. I guess you just can't expect top-notch service at a burger joint.
I could contact the head office, but I won't. I don't have the time to waste doing stuff like that and frankly I don't owe them my time and energy to "maybe" get a response.
I know a guy who regularly contacts companies home offices when he has a complaint. He says that he usually gets a reply back from them along with some coupons.
I believe it. It is not worth my time and I shouldn't be eating that stuff anyways... so a coupon or something free from Fat Burger would actually leave me worse off lol.
Barf. I wondered what that picture had to do with burgers. Unfortunately, now I know.. Haha.
i do , my exwife said I must not be human with some of the things Ive eaten without getting sick! lol
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Sounds like my tutorial. Screw up your reputation and you are dead. Thst is why gurus change their names and websites, right? And Kyle, stay out of those fat kitchens. I got my diabetes under controll by dumping dairy, another suggestion. What other adult mammals drink milk? I have had two heart surgerys and I have an artificial aortic valve. It because of my fat diet while traveling the world o business. I only eat red meat as a garnish. Hope your back is feeling better, Kyle. John
I eat healthy but sometimes I do have a cheat day John where I can subject myself to Fast Food (although I should avoid it altogether). I exercise 5 days per week so hopefully that makes up for these occasional diet blunders!
Gurus rely on a constant new influx of people that have never heard of them and people who are naive as to what is going on...
I don't get enough exercise now days. I like to walk the high school track but right now it stays hot until late and I can' t leave my wife when there is no one here to take care of her, especially now while she is having mine-strokes and is very confused. I have a tread mill and a cardio-glide but I'm not fond of them. My wife gets her exercise by pushing furniture around the house. She is very strong for a 77 year old lady. J