Quick Response to Feedback to Chipotle

I wrote my feedback to Chipotle at about 12:45.  By 5:30, I had received an email response from customer service.  Here is what they said:
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Linda,

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. It is so disappointing to hear that we have let you down a couple times with this restaurant. It is concerning to know that the high chairs are not up to standard and that our team was not helpful with you. We should not be using a cell phone at the register and I'm sorry this happened. I will reach out to the restaurant and make them aware of your concerns so we can look into this further.

If you'd like to send me your mailing address I'd be happy to put a few free burrito cards, good for any main menu item, in the mail for your next visit. You can use them at any location you prefer. We'd love to make it up to you with a better experience.

Sincerely,
Amanda

Amanda Spilos | Customer Service Consultant
Chipotle Mexican Grill
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So sending the feedback was very reinforcing for me in that I got a quick response to my concerns.  I don't know if anything will actually change at that Chipotle, although I'm sure that having the high chairs without safety belts probably violates some restaurant regulation or another.  

I did email her my mailing address and will be glad to receive some coupons because we do go to Chipotle on many a Friday, although I will not be returning to the one on North Druid Hills.

I encourage you to practice your assertiveness in this way - send feedback when you think it would be helpful or worthwhile for a place of business to know about your experience.  You may have an impact and cause a positive change.  In addition you may get some concrete reward for your time and effort - like the coupons I expect I will receive!

Importance of Feedback

One of the joys of my life is that I get to keep two of my grandchildren every Friday.  One is three year old Lark and the other is sixteen month old Max (her cousin).  Usually we do some fun activity away from the house in the morning, eat lunch out and return to my house for nap and for the afternoon which sometimes includes construction paper crafts or baking cookies.

Today it was cold and rainy so we went to Fernbank.  Fernbank has a great children's area and both kids really enjoy it.  As luck would have it, many Atlanta schools are on spring break, so the museum was not overrun with kids from school buses, so we had a great time.  Here they are working a puzzle together.

At the end of our Fernbank fun, we often go to Chipotle for lunch.  There's a very close-by Chipotle on the Emory campus, but it is often hard to park there, so today we chose to go to Chipotle in Toco Hills which is about a 10 minute drive from Fernbank.

We went there two weeks ago and it wasn't a great experience.  I didn't see any high chairs so I took both children through the line with me.  This means that when I got our food on a big round tray, I was carrying Max in one arm and balancing the food in the other.  Often at other Chipotles, the staff will offer to carry the food to the table under these circumstances - not at the N Druid Hills Chipotle.  The cashier was chatting with a friend on her cell phone and barely glanced at me.  When I put our food down on a table, I then, with Max still in my arms, went a carried a high chair (and Max) to the table and put him in it, only to find that the safety strap was broken.  With a sixteen month old who is very active and likes to stand up, this is not a safe situation, but we already had our food and just made do with a bad situation.

Today as I imagined the Emory Chipotle, it seemed preferable to give the N Druid Hills location another try.  We got there and I told Lark we would get a table first and then I'd order our food.  I went over and got a high chair.  When I got to the table with the high chair and the baby, the strap was broken.  Leaving it there, I went to get another one.  It too had a broken strap.  I looked at the third one (the last one) and it also had a broken strap.  Still carrying the baby, I went up the cashier and asked if there were any high chairs without broken straps.  Without even looking at me, she said, "The high chairs are over there," and pointed.  "I know," I said, "But all of them have broken safety straps."  She SHRUGGED.

We left and went to nearby Steak n' Shake where the meal isn't nearly as healthy as at Chipotle but at least we could sit down and order and the high chairs (10 of them) all had safety straps that looked workable.

I came home and wrote the following feedback on Chipotle's web page:
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I'm a grandmother who keeps my 17 mo. old grandson and my 3 year old granddaughter every Friday.  We frequently eat at Chipotle - the Ponce location and the Emory location - our favorite for service and food is Sandy Springs on Roswell Road.  

Last week we went to the N Druid Hills location.  Unlike other locations, the staff was unhelpful with the children as I attempted to get their food to the table as a grandparent by myself, carrying the baby and the tray at the same time.  Generally the staff will help carry the food when I am alone with two children, but not at this location where the cashier was talking to a friend on her cell phone.  When we sat down, the high chair for the little one had a broken safety strap.  I was very surprised by the lack of help and wrote it off to a bad day, since this has not been true at any other Chipotle location to which we have gone.

We gave the same location another try today with a new plan.  Since the staff was unhelpful, I would put the baby in a high chair with the three year old and go through the line by myself this time.   However, the only three high chairs all had broken safety straps and the staff was remarkably unhelpful.  I couldn't leave the children and get in line to order because the 17 month old would stand up and fall out of the high chair without a strap,  so we left and went to Steak n Shake instead.  I will not return to this extremely unhelpful and unfriendly location although I love Chipotle's food which is so much healthier than other fast food restaurants.  I will choose to go back to the Ponce location or the Emory location, where it is impossible to park, over another visit to N Druid Hills.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know if I'll hear from them, but it makes me feel more empowered in an impossible situation to at least send feedback.  I'll post if I hear anything in response.

Lark at Steak n' Shake:

Another Internet letter to clear up confusion

In October, November and December, I received those "please renew now" notices that magazines send out regularly from one of my favorite magazines, Gourmet.

Meanwhile I noticed that on Amazon there were opportunities to subscribe to a number of different magazines at $10 for the year. I took them up on their offer and subscribed to Gourmet. My address is the same and I assumed that they would tack my new Amazon subscription on to the end of my current subscription as most magazines do.

Instead I began in January to receive two copies of the magazine each month. I thought it would stop after January, but the process of receiving two magazines has continued until now. So I decided to write an assertive letter.

Dear Customer Service,

I am very frustrated. I am getting two copies of Gourmet every
month since January. If there's an overlap of subscription renewal,
I thought you simply extended the subscription rather than send
duplicate magazines - it's a waste of paper and my money.

I received numerous notices to renew my Gourmet in the fall. At the
same time I found a bargain rate on Amazon.com. Thinking my
subscription was up in December, I renewed by using the Amazon
site. Now I get two copies of the magazine each month.

I scanned the two labels below. Please extend my subscription
rather than send me duplicates. I would like the extension to include
the four months of duplication which I did not ask for and which I
have paid for thinking I would get one magazine each month.

I love Gourmet and look forward to receiving it for the length of time
I have paid for through the renewal on Amazon.

Notice how the assertive statements are made as "I" statements. I don't question their intelligence or organization, but I do state what I'd like them to do to fix the problem. I ended positively because I do love Gourmet and want to continue subscribing.

I'll post when I find out how they handle this letter.

The Importance of White Space and Email

I've mentioned a number of times about assertive emails in these posts. In today's Internet world, often the rules of grammar take a back seat to the need for adequate attention. In email, employing white space effectively is part of writing an assertive email.

For example, if I am writing an email regarding a product purchased on the Internet, my request can be lost in the use of good grammar.

Re: Order # 450845408

Dear Sir:

The lamp I purchased from your website on April 20 arrived yesterday. When I plugged the lamp in and turned the switch "On", the bulb would not light. I have tried the lamp in several plugs with the same result. I have also changed the bulb in case the bulb I chose was defective. However, the lamp continues not to light. I would like you to replace the lamp with the same model as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Good grammar would argue that all of the sentences in that email should be in the same paragraph. After all, each sentence is about the subject of the paragraph, the defective lamp.

However, in an email, effectiveness is increased with the use of white space to emphasize your points. People glance at email quickly and it helps if the parts you want to focus on are in stand-out positions on the computer screen.

So here's how it would look in an effective assertive form:

Re: Order # 450845408

Dear Sir:

The lamp I purchased from your website on April 20 arrived yesterday. When I plugged the lamp in and turned the switch "On", the bulb would not light.

I have tried the lamp in several plugs with the same result. I have also changed the bulb in case the bulb I chose was defective. However, the lamp continues not to light.

I would like you to replace the lamp with the same model as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Now the important sentences jump off of the computer screen. Points that are made are separated from each other by the use of white space:

• The lamp arrived and it doesn't work
• I've tried all reasonable approaches to determine that the lamp is defective
  
• I want you to replace it.

Good luck with speaking up for yourself in email!

Assertive Email about an Internet Purchase

I ordered these wooden boxes from a site on the Internet. In order to build the boxes the dovetails have to fit together. As you can see the sides are cut exactly the same so there is no way for the dovetails to join.

I took these pictures of the problem and sent a letter to the company who sold me the boxes.

Dear XXXX Company,

I received my order this week and was very pleased to get it. I put together four of the medium boxes tonight.

When I got to the fifth box, the dove tails on the short sides and the long sides were cut exactly the same. In other words, they did not complement each other, so the pieces would not fit together. I'm attaching pictures so you can see the problem.

Please replace the box which was cut in error.

Thank you,

Linda T


The best assertive letters are very simple. This email is an example. I state the problem succinctly: "...the dove tails on the short sides and the long sides were cut exactly the same." I attached pictures to clarify any confusion about the facts to which I refer. Finally in a separate stand-alone sentence, I made a simple statement of what I want: "Please replace the box which was cut in error."

If in writing an assertive letter, you fill it full of non-essential detail, the reader is less likely to know what you want and less likely to address your need.

I'll post when I get either a replacement or a reply.

Talking to A T & T

My April resolution is to begin regularly posting assertiveness incidents on this blog again.

At the end of March on a Monday I arrived in my neighborhood to find my street blocked off by large trucks. My house is in a neighborhood which is a U of three streets off of a main road. So I turned around, went back to the main road, and entered on the other leg of the U. At the bottom of the U (my street) again there was yellow tape stretched completely across the street. I could see large trucks in front of my house, power lines lying in the street, lots of activity.

I walked up to my house to find that a gigantic tree had fallen in my neighbor's yard. Her tree fell away from her house into the street (a huge old oak tree), taking two telephone poles with it as well as the transformer box for our section of the street. Brown, gasoline-smelling liquid was in the street, flowing from the smashed transformer.

Of course, I had no power, the telephone lines had been pulled down (no phone, no computer) and my cable TV (which I couldn't run without the power anyway) was a downed line as well. I let the dogs out and promptly set up for a very dark night.

I put a candle and some matches on the bookcase by my door. I put candles in my bedroom. I got a flashlight and put it in my purse. Then I promptly left and went to dinner and a movie, hoping that the power would be back on when I returned.

Georgia Power worked into the night. I returned in the pitch dark, lit my way with flashlight and candles. I used my laptop for a while, borrowing an unsecured neighbor's wireless and then went to bed.

We didn't have telephone service until Wednesday, but all the work took place outside.

I got my telephone bill and was shocked that I had been billed $85.00 for "I&M labor basic mtnc - reprd" I don't pay for the inside wiring rip off charge that the phone company likes to bill thanks to Clark Howard's good advice. (see March 19, 2003)

I searched the AT&T webpage to find how to contact them and found an email link. I wrote:
"This repair involved all outside work - nothing inside - why is there a charge since it does not involve inside wiring and the repairs were the result of a tree falling on the line?"

This is a simple assertive statement: "This repair involved all outside work - nothing inside."

The question "Why is there a charge....." puts the ball in the lap of the other party and gives them all the power. However, I didn't want to be too pushy since I didn't know what "I&M labor" meant.

If I had been more assertive, I would have said, "I would like you to remove this charge since this repair was the result of a tree falling and involved absolutely no inside repair. I was not even at home while the repair was being done."

Today I was pleased to get an email from a nice person at AT&T responding that AT&T was removing the $85.00 charge. I would have liked either an apology or an explanation, neither of which I got, but I am pleased nonetheless. Dealing with a large corporation like AT&T is often a losing battle and this time I was the winner.

The ongoing Post Office Saga

Today I called the old Post Office to talk to Mr. Turner to find out why my mail hasn't been forwarded. He told me that because I rented an office in an ongoing business and didn't have a separate address from the business (although my mail came to me in my own name and not the name of the business), they would not be able to forward my mail.

He was very sweet and told me he would try to pull my mail and forward it to my new address, but they would be unable to do it in the usual way.

I went online to the feedback page and wrote the following assertive letter to the US Post Office:

I filled out an online change of address form when I moved my business to begin on July 27. I received a confirmation from the post office. When no mail was forwarded, I filled out a second online form. Again I received an email confirmation from the post office.

Mr. Turner at the old address post office 30xxx tells me that they cannot forward my mail because I was a renter in an established business.

I was at that address for 20 years and mail will continue to come to me there, despite every effort I make to change my address with people who send me bills and insurance companies who pay me. I am a psychologist and patients often recontact me after years of not seeing me.

I understand that because I rented an office room in XXXX XXXX Psychologists and did not have a specific suite number, the Post Office cannot forward my mail.

I would like this situation changed.

My mail should be forwarded to me.

In addition, I would like to have my credit card credited for the $2.00 you charged me when I changed my address online twice.

Linda T

Their automatic responder indicated that I should have a response in 1 - 2 days. Meanwhile, it sounds like sweet Mr. Turner at my old post office is going to try to help me get my mail. The very kind office manager at the old office will also hold mail for me to pick up.

For those of you learning about assertiveness, this letter is assertive because of several factors:
1. I make "I" statements to say what I have experienced and what I want to happen
2. In no way do I demean the Post Office or say devaluing things about their system
3. I chose to space the sentences in such a way that what I think is most important in the letter stands out (this is especially important in the email world of today in spite of how our English teachers may have taught us to put together paragraphs.)