What's the nicest thing a business or restaurant has done for you as an apology.

[Freighter]

hope you don't visit the u.s. then because your essentially stiffing the waitstaff and they just might give you the cold shoulder v.s. those who tip.

Already been to the US.

[haxartus]

In the US service workers rely on tips because they are often paid less than minimum wage.

Which is massively stupid in the first place. Convincing your customers that they have to pay your staff wages, besides buying the product...

[Daedius]

Aside from full refunds from where ever... the most I've had beyond that was getting dinner for free after waiting for so long, but that was probably due to me knowing the owners.

[lonely zergling]

Found a fragment of a broken plastic spoon in a coleslaw package. Brought it to the store I bought it and they apologized and refunded the money and asked for my adress. Later they sent me a package with ~50€ worth of goods. Was really nice of them.

[Deleted]

My worst customer service experience ever was with Domino's :P

I was a big fan of Domino's and ate there all the time, so much so that people would get me gift cards and such for it as small gifts and Secret Santa type stuff. Anywho one day I made an order and used a gift card, gave the guy on the phone the number, I didn't know how much was left on the gift card so I asked him what the difference was so I could pay... He told me the gift card fully covered it.

Fast forward 30 minutes and the delivery guy showed up... He told me I owe him $40 for the food. I was like "what...?"... I explained how I paid with gift card and they told me I didn't owe anything extra. He called his manager and the manager is like "yeah I remember the order, but our computer has no record of the gift card so you have to pay..." I told them I didn't want the food then and I wasn't going to pay, they then threatened to call the police on me if I didn't pay. Needless to say, Domino's lost a customer for life that evening.

That sucks man. Do you remember what you ordered? 40 dollars is a huge amount. I can get a large pizza for around 10 euros or 2 medium ones for around 12 euros. And I do like eating there (Also helps that it's just accross the street). They're good pizzas.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Blizzard is responsible for the best customer support I've ever encountered in 30 years on this planet.

The nicest thing they did was not done as an "apology" though, but rather as a token of me being a valued customer in good standing with them.

[Orlong]

Here we go with this same tired, tedious argument.

In the US service workers rely on tips because they are often paid less than minimum wage. this leads to an assumption on many Americans' parts that this is the same in other countries when it's not.

Except thats a full blown lie people often believe. They are NOT paid less than minimum wage. If Americans would just stop tipping them, their employers are required to make up the loss of tips and pay them minimum wage

[Independent voter]

Blizzard is responsible for the best customer support I've ever encountered in 30 years on this planet.

The nicest thing they did was not done as an "apology" though, but rather as a token of me being a valued customer in good standing with them.

Yeah, I got to go along with this. Even if I'm wrong, Blizzard customer support will give me what I want. lol

[quras]

We were at a P.F. Chang's and had been sitting long enough to get appetizers and mixed drinks delivered to the table.

There was a mistake in seating us where we were because it was supposed to have already been cleared and setup for a large party.

Manager came and asked us if we minded moving. We had no problem and they moved everything for us.

2 appetizers and a number of drinks between us later (along with entrees) the bill comes.

The manager had cleared both appetizers and all drinks. We only had to pay for the entrees with a very minor hiccup in the service.

[Armakus]

Why would you tip someone for doing what is a part of their job?

Unsure where you live, but here many "service" workers get paid under legal minimum wage (such as in restaurants) as it is expected that people tip.

- - - Updated - - -

Except thats a full blown lie people often believe. They are NOT paid less than minimum wage. If Americans would just stop tipping them, their employers are required to make up the loss of tips and pay them minimum wage

It's more of a half-truth than a full blown lie. Sure, they will never end up with a paycheck that is below minimum wage, but many "tip" jobs are far more demanding than minimum wage jobs. Example: Worked at target for minimum wage, wayyyyy less demanding than delivery/restaurant service. Tip your damned waiter.

[God Save The King]

Except thats a full blown lie people often believe. They are NOT paid less than minimum wage. If Americans would just stop tipping them, their employers are required to make up the loss of tips and pay them minimum wage

As a fun fact, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, Minnesota, and Montana all require full minimum wage to be paid to tipped employees. So all tips in those states are purely extra. It's a great way to make extra cash. In Pennsylvania, I was paid $2.35 + tip (minimum was $7.25?), so after tips I usually made around $10-12/hour. In California, when minimum wage was $9.50, I was making around $23-25/hr after tips!

More On-topic:
Getting full refunds for faulty stuff/long wait times is pretty common. One of my best memories is a few years back when my account got falsely picked up in a ban wave. Called Blizzard & was unbanned in about 15 minutes, and they gave me two months free game time as an apology.

[Crissi]

yeah, not a tip thread, people.

[the game]

Free desert at the olive garden after they sat us in the wrong seat and forgot we were there for 20 minutes. I won't say no to a free Tiramisu.

[Deleted]

Kind of a random thought after last night when I ordered pizza. The company I ordered from (Pizza Pizza) has a policy of 50mins or it's free for delivery orders. So 1:15hrs later I called and they didn't even have to ask or anything, the guy just said basically "ok let me check the store you ordered from and see the status. Oh, and that'll be free."

Just like that. I was impressed and pretty damn happy as a customer to be honest.

So what's something that you, or even friends or family have had happen, and the place just totally made up for it. Perhaps even blew you away with their customer service practices?

I usually pay with card and they can't really manage a refund, so when a delivery is late they usually add a couple of cans as an apology.

[I Push Buttons]

That sucks man. Do you remember what you ordered? 40 dollars is a huge amount. I can get a large pizza for around 10 euros or 2 medium ones for around 12 euros. And I do like eating there (Also helps that it's just accross the street). They're good pizzas.

Don't recall exactly, but it was dinner for my two sisters, my mom, and myself. I think it was so pricey because there were few promos on any of what I ordered because they mostly wanted side things and not pizza. I don't know what the menu is like there, but here you could get like pasta, chicken, salads, and such.

[undeadmoon]

While not an apology, I did have a pizza shop do something extremely nice for me during a really awful and stressful time.

We used to order from a small family owned pizza shop fairly regularly when my mom was alive, they had a $5 2 topping medium pizza deal every Friday, so we'd often get that and it was a nice break for me from having to work, cook and eventually take care of my mom as she got sicker.

My mom used to open the door to the delivery guy, say a few nice things, and give them a generous tip, and we'd always order something on Xmas eve, and give them a really good tip and a basket of cookies to take back to the store to share, the owner would always call us and thank us. In other words, they really liked us and the guys loved my mom.

When my mom got too sick to answer the door, I started doing it, the delivery guys noticed and you could tell they'd have a passing sadness, but they were still happy to get their tip and some of them would shout a greeting into my apartment to my mom, who'd shout something back.

Eventually, my mom died to her illness. On the day of her funeral, I was just too tired to cook or to care, but I knew we had to eat, and it was a Friday, so partially out of habit, I ordered a pizza. The delivery guy showed up, and wouldn't take my money or my tip, he wouldn't look me in the eyes at all, just said they all knew about my mom because one of the delivery guys had moved into my building, and everyone in my building knew. He also gave me a note.

The note was from the owner, he said that my mom's sweetness and kindness to his drivers and to his shop will be remembered, and that the loss of a parent is stressful enough without having to care for the other parent, my meals for the next month, no matter how many we ordered or how large, are free.

I didn't know what to say, and yeah we ordered every few days during that month because I was tired and why not?

Still the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me from a retail standpoint, and we still order from them when we have a craving.

[-Skye]

I was at a restaurant which had toffee & bitter apple flavored ribs, I asked the waitress how sweet they were as I'm not a massive fan of savory food which tastes like pure sugar and she said the bitterness of the apple is a nice balance and the sweetness is mild. I ordered them and the sauce was way way way too sweet for me. Scraped off the sauce and threw some BBQ on and it was fine. She seen me doing it then brought me out a fresh BBQ flavored rack without even asking me. That was a pretty nice gesture.

[tumppu]

I got upgraded to a first class meal on an airline once, when they ran out of one of the optional courses. One of the few times I was happy to get a "bad" seat.

Also gotten a free dessert, drink or somesuch a few times when I had to wait a longer than expected time for the food. I guess I can consider myself lucky for never having had such a bad food experience, that I would have considered demanding a refund.

[xxcloud417xx]

I usually pay with card and they can't really manage a refund, so when a delivery is late they usually add a couple of cans as an apology.

I did pay card, the charge just disappeared from my purchase history and the money was back in my account balance the next day. Weird...

[vindicatorx]

generally I don't complain unless they really screwed the pooch. However I rarely get anything for compensation. Like I ordered pizza once after 2 hours I call them and am like uh what's going on with my food? I guess they dropped the ticket and didn't notice it. They barely said any sort of apology and offered to bring it out as soon as possible, with no discount. I think I got my steak I didn't eat any of taken off my bill once but I think that is the highlight of my best compensation which I still had to pay for everything else on my bill as well.