We hear continually of customers being rude to employees of restaurants, especially in the fast food businesses and even throwing food at them.

Disgraceful.

However, I have had experiences the other way round and other persons have reported to me of similar occurrences.

Only yesterday I telephoned my order in to a fast food outlet here in Cayman and after going through the items I wanted and before I could finish a voice in broken English shouted at me “telephone number!”. He went on shouting this at me like a parrot. When he eventually stopped I said to him, “Do you mean to tell me you haven’t recorded any of the items I’ve just ordered?”

“Telephone number!” Once again the voice continued this discourse.

Even when I told him he was being very rude, he still kept shouting “Telephone number!”

I hung up.

A lady told me she had placed an order for a small food item at a fast food restaurant here on Grand Cayman costing $5 and tried to change it for a much larger order she was told she had to pay for the one she had ordered first. It had been cooked she was told. They would not cook anything else for her until she had paid for the smaller item. She asked to speak to the Supervisor who came and told her the same thing. She said there was no ‘sorry’ it was a demand.

She handed over the $5, left the food and her body, too without any food. Never will she go back and a lot of us now know and that place is given a wide berth.

I overheard a young lady asking for a job at a fast food restaurant and the employee told her to “Go away. No jobs today or any day.” With great gobs of laughter at he rhyme.

And then there is the major problem with discovering that the order you have picked up is wrong. You then have to go back and speak to another rude employee.

It is not just here.

In the US, Carol Tice writing in Forbes wrote an excellent article on this very thing. This is what she had to say:

“Bad customer service when we’re eating out is always a drag. The capper is if employees are rude or goofing off while you’re trying to get your food.

“If you’re looking to avoid drive-through nightmares, a new study from QSR magazine, a fast-food industry trade publication, sheds light on which chains are failing to deliver. To compile the data, QSR survey partner Insula Research made more than 2,000 visits to seven top operators — McDonald’s, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, along with two southern-based regional chains, burger-oriented Krystal, and Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits.

“The most error-free chain was Chick-fil-A, with fewer than 3 percent order mistakes. Ironically, restaurants that have “order confirmation boards” — the light-up display that shows you a printout of what you’ve ordered — did worse at accuracy overall than those that didn’t.

“On the rude/lazy employee front, Krystal and Bojangles’ also did poorly, and Burger King again takes first place among the major chains. So bad attitude and inaccuracy seem to go together. Nearly 6 percent of Burger King visits found robotic or lackadaisical help, and just under 3 percent of help were downright rude.

“McDonald’s had slightly more workers on autopilot or goofing off, but had far fewer rude employees — under 1 percent.

“Maybe firing your rudest employees could help on two fronts — customers have a better experience and they get the food they ordered.

“The poor marks are cause for much concern at the fast-food chains, and there’s plenty of discussion of how to do better. Speeding up delivery time with mobile ordering is among the options on the table. But that won’t win my loyalty if my order is delivered wrong more quickly, by an employee with a sneer on his face.”

To read the whole article go to: https://www.forbes.com/sites/caroltice/2012/10/12/rude-employees-and-order-errors-worst-fast-food-chains-for-drive-through-service/#79f7597c4877