Yesterday must have been one of those days. I don’t know what got into me, but I took it upon myself to provide Burger King some feedback at the corporate level.
I was trying to be nutritionally responsible and plan my lunch, so I looked up the stats on the salad I wanted. Unfortunately, BK had listed the composite totals for the salad, with no breakout for each ingredient. Since I always leave off the blue cheese and only use half the dressing–both of which have a significant impact on the nutritional values of the salad–it was important to me to know how those broke down. Other fast food sites do this, so I knew it wasn’t a far-out idea.
Feeling like Holly Helpful, I decided to pass my suggestion along to BK. After all, their “Have it your way” motto has been stuck in my head for years; I was sure this would make sense to them. Besides that, their competition was doing it. I massaged all of this into the maximum 500-word limit and submitted it via BK’s online contact form. I had done my good deed for the day, end of story. Or so I thought.
A few hours later, an email from BK guest relations dropped into my inbox. A bit surprised but pleased they had responded, I opened the message. It read:
Dear Tammy Davis,
Thank you for taking the time to contact BURGER KING restaurants Guest
Relations with your inquiry.All of our nutritional and allergen information can be found at the website below:
http://www.bk.com/en/us/menu-nutrition/index.html
We value your patronage and look forward to serving you in the near
future.Sincerely,
BURGER KING restaurants Guest Relations
What a bummer. Clearly they hadn’t really read my message. I told them I had reviewed exactly the site they referenced and had found it lacking. Pointing me back to it only told me they didn’t get it. Instead, I wish they had responded with, Thanks for your suggestion. We’ll look into whether it makes sense for us at this time. In fact, NO response would have been better in this case.
These days marketers talk about customer interaction, responsiveness, and online conversations. What we often forget, however, is that interaction is not enough in itself; it must be meaningful interaction to be valuable. Don’t just send me an answer. Send me an answer that makes sense and addresses my question–or don’t send one at all.