I eat out at restaurants a lot with friends, family, or to do a quick takeout. After you’ve been to certain places as well as favorite locations there are certain expectations. Good food, good service, nice experience etc.

However sometimes you can have a bad experience and it can ruin the entire place. Lately when that happens I have sent out emails and gotten the issue fixed. And of course there are times where you’re email will go unnoticed or you will receive a generic reply with no help.

Here are a few problems I’ve gone through and their resolutions.

California Pizza Kitchen – We love the Carmel Mountain CPK location, however after we moved we went to our nearest one, Fashion Valley. We were told a 10 minute wait (seated 30+ mins later), the food took a while, and it wasn’t as good as it usually is. My Carne Asada Pizza had about 4 small pieces of meat.

Resolution – Two vouchers for a free entree and small drink.

Papa Johns – Delivery was supposed to be 45 minutes and it took well over an hour.

Resolution – Two free pizza coupons.

Blockbuster – Various complaints about movies not in stock, not able to redeem coupons, etc.

Resolution – Free Movie/Game Rentals.

Barona Casino (Fiesty Kates) – Very rude service one evening will out with my family. Definitely won’t be visiting that particular place again, but love the Barona Buffet

Resolution – Still going, but I have been offered a free meal.

Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas – Mrs. Free Samples and her sister went to stay there. We had previously visited the casino for her 21st birthday and it went fine. This time around she had several issues with booking as well as the room. When she got home I emailed them…

Resolution – Refunded one night.

McDonalds – Bug in the food, this was probably the most difficult one to get, but I fought for my $10. They wanted to refund me only certain items in the order.

Resolution – I got my money back.

One Kings Lane – Of course I had to do at least one fail… We recently went through lots of crap with OKL. I emailed them a long email and only got a generic response. Fail!

Resolution – Spending my credits and not mentioning them again.

Last but not least my most frustrating recent problem, which I mentioned before, was Cox. When we moved I had wanted everything set up to be ready on a FRIDAY, which was the day we moved. Then over the weekend we could set-up our TV and Internet as we unpacked. Due to a huge technical error on their part we didn’t have connection until WEDNESDAY afternoon, nearly a week later…

After spending probably a few hours on support over the past month or so I have had to call them to edit my bill, RE-REQUEST the $50 credit I was promised TWICE, and call for other various problems.

What customer service stories do you have? Any service or company that has impressed you?

Note – Please keep in mind these incidents are probably over the last year or so. I don’t simply email a company just for small things, it has to really bother me or someone in my ‘party’. I also make sure to go out of my way to alert a manager or submit feedback when a person goes above and beyond.