Friday, September 25, 2009

EAT did a bad thing. then a good thing.

I had to write a complaint letter to EAT this morning. They responded Very Quickly Indeed. Here is my email, shortly followed by the response. RESULT!

Hi EAT,

I love EAT food, I really do. I get my breakfast from you lot, like, three times a week. And I love your soups. You did an amazing chicken and vegetable one once that I never quite recovered from, it was that good. I think it was a special one. Tasty.

It was pay day today (yippee!), so I thought I was more than justified in purchasing a tasty EAT-type breakfast. I was mildly upset to see that you'd sold out of bacon butties - my fave - but, it being pay day, I plumped for the rather huge full breakfast toasted thingy (the very last breakfast-type roll in the shop, no less), a cup of tea and an Innocent smoothie. I paid, without really paying too much attention - I'm a bit bleary eyed in the morning, sometimes grumpy even - and mentioned that I would like sauce (ketchup, not brown) and waited.

I was already a teeny bit late for work, but knew that waiting for the sandwich machine to work its magic would make it all worthwhile. A few minutes later my tasty butty was wrapped and ready. The nice lady had forgotten about my tea, but it turned out she hadn't charged me for it, and I needed to get to work, so I departed, still happy - after all, we have a kettle in the office, so I could brew my own cuppa.

My office is about 90 seconds walk away, and once I'd got my hoodie off, I opened up my silvery foil parcel and took a bite into my.... totally cold butty. Like, not even cooked. At all. Cold sausage, cold bacon, cold egg. Doughy, untoasted bread. I don't mind eating cold food, but I'd paid for a hot one. And cold scrambled egg is just Not Very Nice. And the worst thing was, was that it was now too late to go back and get it changed. My smoothie now has to keep me going until lunchtime. I'm a growing boy, EAT. Well, I'm 31, but I'm only 5'6" so I hope I'm still growing.

I don't know what happened - maybe the nice lady wasn't pressing down on the machine hard enough. She was distracted after all, forgetting my tea. Maybe the machine wasn't on. Or maybe it hadn't heated up fully - sometimes my oven takes a while to pre-heat, so I feel your pain. But I'm just a little disappointed, EAT, that's all. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, my mum says so. So WHO KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NOW THAT I'VE MISSED OUT.

Please restore my faith in EAT, EAT.

Oh, and this happened at 68 Oxford Street, W1 1BN on Friday 25th September at 9.30am on the dot.

Ta,

Saul Fearnley


Dear Saul,

Thank you for taking the time to contact EAT. and for your feedback – it is much appreciated.

I was sorry to hear that you were not completely satisfied with your full english breakfast butty this morning. Please be assured that we take such feedback very seriously, and I have directly contacted the shop manager & the area manager to ensure that the necessary actions are taken to resolve this quality issue & prevent any recurrences in future.

I hope that this has gone some way to restoring your faith in EAT. I would like to offer you, as a gesture of goodwill, some EAT. vouchers so you can enjoy a lunch on us. If you would like to accept them, please forward your postal address to me.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you once again for bringing this matter to my attention & giving us the opportunity to investigate & respond.

Kind regards,
Matt Hart
Customer Services & Charity Liaison Manager
EAT.

2 comments:

Boz said...

Complaining in a polite way is the way forward, definitely. It brings RESULTS.

Caroline, No. said...

You've got to be happy with that.

I love Eat. Did you know that they have a dice in a cup behind the counter and if you guess the right number you don't have to pay for your coffee?