Recent subscriber? Here's some background about this newsletter. Was this email forwarded to you? Then you need your own subscription. Please tell the person who forwarded it that I said thank you!

A poor customer experience almost ruined Mother’s Day brunch 🙃

Last weekend, my wife picked out a nice family meal take-out box. I placed an online order on Saturday night and received a confirmation email and order number.

The whole family (including our dog) was on a Sunday morning outing, so we went together to pick up the order, which was due at noon.

With everyone waiting in the parked car, I walked up to the restaurant. They had a table outside to receive dine-in customers and handle take-out orders.

I gave my name and waited about ten minutes.

A staff member came outside to tell me she didn’t see my order in the system.

She went back in to check.

Out she came and still no order.

I showed her the email confirmation, which listed my order details and confirmation number.

In she went again, but no luck.

Another ten minutes later and the puzzle started getting pieced together.

The restaurant uses a third party ordering system on their website. They could void my original order and start preparing the food now.

According to the staff member, I’d get a free meal 🙌

Meanwhile, my family was baking in a parked car for close to 30 minutes. They'd have to continue waiting for the food to be made.

I returned to the car and we hatched a plan. I’d drop them back home, then come back out to pick up the free meal.

The staff member was wrong, though. They couldn’t void the order. A member of the kitchen staff came out to tell me that they could start the meal now and throw in some extra items at no cost.

He said that the restaurant manager hadn’t set up a process to check the third-party ordering system.

In the end, we got our food and had our Mother’s Day lunch.

A typical response would be to get frustrated at the two staff members. How could they provide such poor customer service?

But what happened was out of their control. It was the fault of the system -- namely, the manager who didn't set up a process to handle orders from the third-party system.

Sure, the first staff member shouldn’t have told me the meal would be free, but perhaps that was a training issue.

I saw a similar issue with a B2B vendor recently.

Our team was frustrated at how the vendor couldn’t answer basic questions we had.

Like the restaurant situation, though, this wasn’t her fault. She was new to the job and it seemed like the founder of the company threw her into the mix without adequate training.

The lesson here?

Organizations who expect employees to provide an excellent customer experience must put those employees in a position to succeed.

Without that, a poor experience makes it painful on both your customers and your employees.

-Dennis.