Caught in the Act

The General Manager for some Denny's restaurants in our area called me.  She had received my comments from the Denny's website and wanted to apologize for the experience we had at the I-10 store. She said that she had negative feedback before, but mine was more specific and gave her something to work with.  She asked me to go back to the restaurant Monday and see if the experience was different. She would comp our dinners and we would be "secret shoppers."

I agreed and last night, we went to Denny's.  The crew must have been expecting us because we were treated like visiting royalty!  Every single person on the crew greeted us personally and came back during our dining experience to see how things were going.  Last visit? No service; This visit? Too much service.  I told Y we had been made and they knew who we were and were going way out of their way to provide us with the ultimate in service.  He asked me how they would know who we are, and told me that maybe I was just overreacting.

As we finished dining, the supervisor came over to our booth and thanked us for coming back and giving them a second chance to get it right. She apologized for our previous experience and told me we are always welcome at their restaurant.  Nope, we hadn't identified ourselves … but she knew.

I'm not sure how informative our feedback would be about this visit as they obviously knew who we were and went overboard to see that we had a good dining experience. The food was prepared properly, the service was good, and the experience was fine. I'll recommend to the GM that she send in another couple of secret shoppers to see if the crew performs as well for strangers.