The other night, I ripped a page right out of the MickMel play book: I had bad service at a restaurant and emailed them about my experience when I got home. Here’s what happened:

My wife and I went to Stoney River Legendary Steaks a couple of weeks ago. We had never been so we thought we’d give it a shot. Upon our arrival, we were told that the wait would be 20 minutes (it was 6:30 on a Wednesday night). We were finally seated 45 minutes. Not a big deal. That kind of thing happens in nice places all the time. So I let it go.

When we were seated, our waiter came by and, with as little enthusiasim as possible, took our drink orders. He didn’t return for a full 10 minutes. Unacceptable. Then he told us the specials and took our order, again with little interest in doing so. We didn’t see him again until the he brought us our check. I had to ask the girl who brought out our meal to refill our drinks. So we finally get the check and leave.

As you may have gathered from my Office Max experience, I HATE bad customer service. So after this experience, I decided I’d try a classic MickMel tactic: email the restaurant when I got home and tell them of my experience. He usually gets good results, so I figured I had nothing to lose. So I sent off my email.

The next day, I got a call at home from the managing partner at Stoney River. I wasn’t able to take the call, but he left a message that was very apologetic. He said that he wanted to talk to me about my experience and was very sorry that we had a bad experience. He kept leaving messages and I kept forgetting to call back. So finally, I called him back yesterday. We talked for a few minutes. I told him that the food was outstanding but the service left a lot to be desired.

He eventually asked for my address. He then told me that he was going to send a $100 voucher for us to use. He also told me that when we decided to use it, to call him and he would make sure that we wouldn’t have to wait to be seated. He also said he wanted to meet me in person and make sure that I understood that service was his top priority.

I was blown away. Most places would just send a form email response or a form letter. This guy called me and wanted to make sure I knew that he was working to correct the issue. I was very impressed. Needless to say, I think our next trip to Stoney River will be MUCH better.