Chick-fil-A — Restaurant in Roseville

You had one job, Chick-Fil-A Pleasant Grove team: fix a simple customer service slip up and do right by a regular customer. This team, their leadership, and their corporate support failed that simple task last night and this morning. If Door Dash screws up an order, I get a credit and/or a full refund within 5 minutes of making a complaint. Instead, I dealt with the scenario below.

I was behind a car that took 10 minutes to provide their order to the first attendant, long after I and four cars behind me placed our orders with the other attendant. When I arrived at the window I was advised to pull forward to park in VIP because my sandwiches needed another three minutes.

After sitting there 15 minutes watching NO other cars pull into VIP and dozens of cars drive past with their sandwiches and my 2 year old losing his mind in a non-moving hot car in 100 degree weather, our food arrived but without our drinks. I asked for the drinks and to have the person flag the manager about what was happening. The manager came out with the drinks another 5 minutes later and four single-item freebie cards as compensation. This person apologized and was professional however the cards offered neither the items we ordered nor a dollar amount close to what we spent on our meal.

I get home after a now 30 minute drive-thru experience with cold food and would have loved for that to be the end of it, but now we're missing napkins, forks, and our condiments. I felt compelled to call the store, which directed me to their "24-hr" customer care hotline that closes at 10p eastern (it was now 7:45p pacific), so I called back and spoke to the same manager for a refund. They told me I'd either need to come back to the store for a refund or go back to the hotline or the website to get a QR code for a refund. There is no such option on the website so I called back this morning during operating hours and explained everything above.

The customer service agent tells me there's no way to process a refund or provide a standard gift card of equal value over the phone. They started asking me random questions about my order and what sides I had a problem with to fill out a report -- I stopped the questioning to ask if there was anything further that could be done to process a refund for me, was told they can't do that over the phone, so I hung up.

So the onus is on me to come back to this store, on my time and gas to help them correct their series of mistakes? Do you all really want me to be the slowest person in the drive through from now on, checking every order and item, every time?

It's 2023, the bar for customer service is a lot higher than a string of hollow apologies and a free chicken...

So I get it is the holidays, I get that this is the super popular Chick-fil-A in Roseville, yet there is a problem here.

A lot of Chick-fil-A's customers work in this area. What this means is, we have a limited amount of time to take a break and grab something to eat. So I decide, what the heck, I will brave the lines because customer service is such a big deal and they have great food, risk it.

I go to the drive through, order a Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich Entrée (Sandwich, Large Waffle Fries, Large Sweet Tea).

I get back to my office, very hungry, and open my meal. What do I find? A deluxe! What is the problem you may ask? Cheese. Never once did I say the word deluxe, nor the word cheese. Somehow the nice kid who took my order decided to order me something other than what I wanted. Unfortunately I am one of the few people in the world who are pretty cheese adverse.

My mistake in assuming I should trust the people who work here to take an order correctly. Additionally, it must be my fault for not checking the receipt and going through the bag to make sure there is no cheese on what should be the assumption for a chicken sandwich, you know? No cheese. It was very busy and I didn't want to be that "Karen" that holds up the line doing forensic analysis of my order, others are in a hurry and hungry too.

Now based on this principle, get what you pay for, or at least get what you ordered, I return to the Chick-fil-A in Roseville, apologize for passing to the front of the line as I am looking to get a refund. Again I realize they are super busy. Manager finally comes over, I explain the above, she offers me a replacement. I am not sure what this Chi-fil-A policy is, but I just wasted my entire lunch hour driving, waiting, then returning. It is going to take more than simply fixing my order. She refunded my money and offered me my sweet tea at no charge. Mind I had not drank a drop of it I was so upset. Again, they are super busy.

Perhaps next time given how busy you are and considering a person is willing to go to such lengths to get a refund, throwing them a free meal card and a replacement meal would have gone a long way to assuage my lost lunch hour.

Instead, you definitely lost a customer at this location, perhaps a permanent lost customer, everyone I know will get the story, and you get this review. I am the last person looking for anything free. Some consideration would have been...

TL;DR: The app, USE IT! You won't regret it. The price is a little more than other fast food places, but the taste.. it tastes like a REAL sandwich! I ordered two sandwiches and a milkshake. They don't pull any punches with their milkshakes.. I love it! ..and the fries, the fries! Try them!

Whole post: So, first time going to a Chick-Fil-A for me. Coming from Japan, the efficiency of the country and people were yet to be matched.. until now.

You may have passed the restaurant and thought "Why do they cone some of the parking area off?" (I know I did!) ..well, that's because they use it to split the incoming drive-thru customers to double their "processing power". Brilliant, if you ask me. Their drive thru appears ALWAYS busy, but really, they process people QUICK.

I pulled up, and their were 10 cars in front of me; I waited MAYBE three minutes from start to finish beginning with pulling in from the freeway.. and that's during rush hour! Far quicker than other places around!

I used the app and will never turn back. Each customer that uses the app goes right through the line, literally.. you could tell who used the app and who didn't. Personally, I went from placing my order to the take-out window in 20 seconds.. and that's with four cars in front of me. Even without the app, they still processed people within ten seconds: far faster than I expected.

The app is a small download (17mb) and takes 2 minutes or less to setup. If you have an Android, it's even easier to setup.. personally, I set it up in 15 seconds. You can also save receipts and have them E-mailed to you post-order. Bonus key tip: the app provides you with points, which can be redeemed for extra food items.

All in all, this is really the Round Table of chicken sandwiches. Little more to pay, but you CAN TASTE the difference. It tastes fresh and the spiciness is just right. I WILL be coming back here again. Great job Chick-Fil-A, I completely understand the hype now and you just gained a...