How a restaurant ruined my week

How a restaurant ruined my week

A small thing can make a big difference. I was going to grab a quick lunch with my daughter to celebrate her new job. We had decided to meet at a cafe/restaurant in a major shopping centre. We order our meals and as I go to pay, the girl at the counter says, “Sorry our EFTPOS system is down. Could you maybe go and get cash from the ATM outside?” So I agree and head off to get some money. You know the drill ... I stick my card in and punch in my PIN.

The machine just gobbles my card up.

Are you kidding? I now have to go back to the restaurant and explain why I have to cancel our meals. I then head off to the bank to see if I can get my card back. Rocking up to the bank at lunch time is never a good idea. Now I'm stuck in a slow, meandering queue. So I finally get my chance to explain my story to the teller. He then points and sends me to another counter. Now I have to line up again, then explain once more that their ATM just ate my card. I ask if he could get my card back now or, worst case scenario, if I could pick it up tomorrow once they restock the machine with money. This is when the bank Customer Service Officer sends me to my Red Room. He tells me that's not possible. “Say what? But it's your ATM. Why can't I get my card back?” He launches into a long-winded monologue trying to convince me that the bank only services the ATM outside the branch and not the other ATMs in the shopping centre because they're handled by somebody else. Then he gives me the "good news": “You should get your new card in about 4-5 days.” So not only did I miss having lunch with my daughter, now I have the joyous task of changing all payments linked to my card to look forward to! What a pain. If that's not bad enough, I have to line up again for the third time at the bank to get money out. I don't usually carry much cash around because I have 2 teenage daughters who are like vacuum cleaners when it comes to money. If you have kids, you know you always have your hand in your pocket funding their various activities. So now I'm off every couple of days to get more cash out. This sucks. I can't wait for my card to arrive. I know this isn't the worst thing in the world to happen. It could be worse. Still, every time I have to go to the bank now I curse that restaurant for indirectly putting me in this position. You'd think this would be the end of my whinge about restaurants not offering some form of electronic payment option. You'd be wrong. I'm only getting started. My tale takes another turn on Saturday night while watching the Swans belt St Kilda. A friend rings me saying he's taken a fall & bumped his head. So I jump in the car to see if he's alright. He has a black eye & an egg bursting out of the side of his head. So after a brief description of what happened, I decide to take him to the hospital to make sure he's okay. Another line. Triage. It's not too bad for a Saturday night. So they offer him an ice-pack and they put him through the concussion protocol tests. They tell us they need to keep him for the next 4.5 hours to monitor him to see if he's suffering from a concussion. I can't say I really enjoy hospitals, but they do a good job. After about an hour into our wait, he wants a drink of water. I know from previous visits that there is a vending machine in the next corridor. It's a dark hallway, with only the drinks vending machine glowing. I go to pull out my card to pay. It's not there. As you may recall, that ATM ate my card and I'm still waiting for a replacement! So now I have to pay with cash as I don't have any coins on me. I select a bottled water and slide a $20 note into the slot. The bottle falls from the cradle & crashes to the collection well. Then the machine starts spitting out coins. It's like getting a payout from a pokie jackpot. The coins keep coming. It's raining coins! I am struggling to keep up with the coins as they pour down through the chute. You can imagine how silly it looks as I keep stuffing the coins in my pocket. This vending machine kindly decided to dump my $17.20 change in 10c & 20c pieces. My pockets are now bulging with silver coins. I go back and give my friend the water. Even though my friend has a headache, he is laughing hard as I start digging into my pockets to show him all my new coins. I dump them all on the chair to show him my impressive pile of silver coins. The coins were so heavy they were causing my pants to sag. So I guess now you can see why that restaurant ruined my week! If only their EFTPOS system was working, I would have just had a nice lunch with my daughter. I would not have got stuck in a queue at the bank! And I certainly would not be lugging a tonne of 10c & 20c coins in my pockets! All I wanted was to share an enjoyable lunch with my daughter but instead I developed a negative association with that restaurant! Here's the deal; It doesn't really matter if the restaurant didn't actually take my card, I still blame them for not having a functioning EFTPOS system.

So the lesson is ... Make it easy for your customers!

If we're coming to your restaurant, we want to have a pleasant experience. We could be celebrating, or planning on proposing, or catching up with friends. Or we could be just coming because were are hungry and feel like eating out. Make it memorable for the right reasons, and not something we want to forget. There's nothing worse than a disgruntled customer telling everybody about the terrible time they had at your cafe or restaurant. Don't let this happen to you.

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