Customer is always right?

Remember the good ole days of customer service? Where the customer was right....and if the customer caught an error - the seller/company offered some kind of renumeration for their error.

Enter our day today - On the way to the furniture store that we had been trying to get to for 3 days we stop for takeout at a Wendy's. (They hate to see us coming with our huge order....) Anyway it took the cashier 3 times to get the order right and the window person 3 tries to get the order right when giving it to us. We waited in the drive thru 10 minutes! (We did get an additional free sandwich in our bag that the manager pointed out to us - although who was going to eat it on top of what we ordered?)

We finally make it to the furniture store (the security detail didn't stop us at the door) and find a floor sample sofa and chair that were being sold pretty inexpensively and we liked the comfort and color. We are told they are being sold as a set because they are floor samples and we agree to take them. Salesperson (very green from what we can tell) goes to ring them up and tells us that she can't sell us the chair because it isn't in the computer. Must have already been sold, she says! Hubby and I consider some other sets but aren't crazy about anything ( translate - everything is too expensive). We look at some bedroom furniture and come back and ask this salesperson to check with someone else about the sofa set - how can you not have the chair when it is sitting right here and says it is being sold WITH the sofa. Salesperson says "the chair is sold." Hubby and I leave a little dejected and discuss on the way home how to try and fix what we have....

On the way home we stop at Sonic and get drinks to cheer us up. First they try to give us someone else's order and then when the order is right - then try to charge us for someone else's food....(We are told it is her second day by the manager 5 or 6 minutes later - and she is working a busy drive-thru by herself on a Saturday?) No offer of a discount coupon here either....

When will employers learn that training your employees pays off in retention and customer satisfaction later?....

The kicker....when we get home there is a message on the answering machine from the furniture salesperson - she checked again and figured out the chair and sofa are available.....

The bright side - hubby and I did get to go out for the 15th anniversary last night. We went to a Japanese steak house and enjoyed the show and good food (and then rushed home to feed a hungry baby and change a diaper that exploded everywhere)......at least it wasn't Wendy's.....