In a world where the impression that a customer comes first is regularly challenged, it is refreshing to see immediate response to concerns and proactive solutions… and, in  less than a day!

You bring your favourite fast soul-food dinner home, sit back on your comfy couch in front of a vacation-binge-TV catching up on the latest Netflix extravaganza and after a few morsels, you see your tray seems to be glistening. That doesn’t seem right!

That fried delight seems to have been tinseled! 

Wait…what? Is that steel wool peeking out of the meal? Yes! Understandably your worst concern is that you may already have consumed some. The dining experience has now soured. It’s a New Year’s holiday evening, and offices will not open for a few days.

A phone message in the first business day morning and a response  almost immediately. Great start. Back and forth by email and an investigation begins including a regional perspective of the chain. An instant apology and offer of meal replacement. By end of day, it is determined to be a unique situation, never reported before, but completely intolerable at any level. Then the management went into solution mode immediately. They determined that regardless of any explanation, food cleaning and food preparation were, as previously trained, to be more clearly separated and scrutinized. And with an acceptance of responsibility, they went the largest step forward by immediately banning the use of steel wool anywhere in the kitchen. The replacement of plastic scrub pads was instituted as a new policy. Staff training would highlight this new direction to accentuate the importance of health and safety in every aspect of delivery of service.

Full Disclosure: I was the recipient of the unfortunate surprise. I also wanted to avoid a current phenomena of public shaming in social media. When a business, who doesn’t know me personally, devotes positive change in order to avoid catastrophic  outcomes, all within the first day of awareness, they deserve to be applauded.  I will not mention the company specifically just because some internet trolls would love to pretend to be the guardians of our civil rights but really just revel in other’s misery. There is actually a German phrase for this mindset, ‘Schadenfreude’. Humiliation does not encourage resolution. Responsible leadership in business does.

Bravo.