Over the years I have always enjoyed changing things up a little from the burger and fries and going with the good 'ol Arby's roast beef sandwiches.  Then when they introduced the Turkey Bacon Club sub, I was in heaven.  But all that changed recently because of the complete lack of professionalism of one store, and the manner in which my complaint was handled by their "Feedback Team".

Overall there were 3 incidents that changed the way we think about Arby's.  The first involved me stopping in to grab supper, only to wait for almost 15 minutes for our food as 3 other people who came in aftr me were served and left.  My order consisted of two Beef 'n Cheddar combo meals, a kids roast beef meal, and mozzarella sticks.  From eating there in the past I knew that the cheese sticks would take an extra couple minutes, but I had no idea how long I was going to wait this time.  From what I could tell there were 2 managers on duty.  One of the managers named Chris Attwood was supposedly manning the fry station, but obviously wasn't interested in doing his job.  I realized later that my fries and cheese sticks had actually been hanging in the basket above the grease for a least 5 minutes before they were put in their containers and ultimately into my bag.  The other manager (who's name I didn't get) saw this, realized how long I had been waiting, approached Chirs and had words with him, and then apologized to me for the long wait.  He gave me 2 coupons for free combo meals, and again apologized as I walked away.

A few weeks later my wife and I decided to dine in, and used our free coupons that we were given the previous visit.  Again Chris was the acting manager, and Pat was our cashier.  We placed our order and handed Pat our coupons, who immediately told Chris that she needed him to process the coupons.  She finished ringing up our order, but couldn't cash it out until Chris came over to assist.  Ultimately it took Pat 4 times to get Chris to come over because he was discussing with another worker what he was going to be doing later.  He then proceeded to discuss a scheduling issue with the employee, totally ignoring the fact that we were standing there waiting to complete our order.  When my wife voiced her concern to Pat a second cashier named Robin (who was standing behind the counter with her hands in her pockets) stated to us "Well he's doing about 5 different things right now", attempting to take his side.  Surprisingly Chris never said a single word to us, nor apologized for his inconsiderate behavior.  He simply walked away.  To top it all of, his shirt was half untucked, making it appear that he had just crawled out of bed before his shift, and paid absolutely no attention to, nor was concerned about, his appearance.  We were appalled at the complete lack of regard and professionalism that these people (Chris and Robin) has exhibited in front of us.

As we were eating in the dining room we discussed what had happened, and how upset we were at the service that we had just experienced.  We would have actually walk out of the restaraunt if it hadn't been for the fact that the kids had not yet eaten supper, nor did we.  About half way through our meal Pat came over to our table and personally apologized for what had happened.  We were surprised that she would do this since she was not at all to blame for any of the situation.  I told her that the reason we had the free coupons was for the previous experience, and that Chris was the cause of that issue as well.  After we expressed our disgust at Robin's actions, we then found out that Robin was supposedly a manager in training.  We both said that we felt that it was a mistake based on her actions, and that we would be dining elsewhere if that indeed happened.  Pat apologized again, and we left.

The third incident involved me passing through the drive-thru on my way home from work.  Again I ordered two Beef 'n Cheddar combos, and a roast beef sandwich.  Again I waited approximately 8 minutes for our food, but didn't voice my opinion at that time.  I folded the top of the bag to keep the heat in and the food as fresh as possible for the drive home.  Our house is 1 1/2 miles from the store.  In the 5 minutes that it took me to drive home and hand the food to my wife, when we began to eat you would have thought that I drove around the block with the food hanging out the window.  Everything was cold, and the buns on each sandwich felt like they had been sitting on the shelf for months.

I immediately got online and tried to find a customer service number for Arby's.  However, on their website the only thing you can do is fill out a form and send them a message.  I typed up a limited description, checked off a bunch of boxes, and submitted the form.  They only allow you 2000 characters to describe the issue, and that proved to be not enough to relay the anger and disappointment that I was feeling.  Looking that the total number of characters that I have typed in this post so far I'm already up to 5251 characters, and I'm still not done.

The next day I received a standard form email from their Feedback Team.  It basically said that they received my complaint, were sorry, and would send me out come free coupons for combo meals.  Obviously no one had actually read the complaint to any form of detail, and they were just using their standard response.  A few days later we received a form letter in the mail, and 2 coupons for free meals.  No phone call from anyone...no appearance of a real apology...no personal contact from anyone regarding the situation at all.  Obviously the way that Arby's chooses to handle any complaints about their stores.

As it stands we will no longer be eating at any Arby's in the future.  If this is the way that they choose to run their company, and the people that they choose to put in charge of their stores, obviously they don't care about anything but their bottom line.  If they can't take the time to pick up the phone and talk to someone who has given them the feedback that they want, or offer some type of personal attention, then they don't need my business.  I'm not saying that they have to personally deal with every single complaint that comes in, but they should at least make it appear like they care about their customers more than what they obviously do.