I didn’t intend to write about anything today, that is, until McDonalds ruined my morning.

I hardly ever go there anymore and apparently I’m not alone. I used to visit quite often and especially like their breakfasts. These days I have cut way way down on my visits because I’m trying to eat healthier. Today, I decided to splurge on breakfast since it’s Sunday, I’d gotten an early start, was out running around and hadn’t eaten at home like I normally do.

I pulled into the McDonalds drive through and waited while the car in front of me took a very long time to order. It could have been a clue, but I just assumed he had a large order or maybe didn’t know what he was doing. When if came my turn I waited a minute or so and then the woman taking the orders informed me they were out of sausage. That was a first for me at any McDonalds, but OK they ran out of sausage. I really don’t like their bacon so I was just going to leave when my wife said she would have an Egg McMuffin meal and Orange Juice instead of the sausage. Since we were ordering I got a coffee. That was a pretty simple breakfast order, but I had to repeat it three times and their order review screen was missing completely, so I couldn’t check that she got it right.

We paid at the first window and the guy in front of me was still at the next window waiting for his *huge* order, which turned out to be another minute of so and only one small bag. We pulled up and after what seemed like a while we were handed our food, coffee and told our OJ would be right up. Two minutes later and a long line forming they asked us to pull up and wait some more. For OJ!

My wife Nancy said *let’s just get out of here*, so I told them to forget the OJ and we drove off pretty agitated. I got a couple blocks away and took a sip of my coffee. Even though I had repeated THREE times to put two creams in my coffee, it was black. I just threw the whole coffee out the window. I made sure there was no one near and I didn’t throw the cup, but it still probably was a poor choice.

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. Later, I sent out a tweet about my horrible experience and of course McDonalds replied. They wanted to tell them about my visit, so I went to the form they sent me to and tried. Every time there was some missing information and it refused to send (comon McDonalds, the Mr/Mrs field is required???). Not only that after it would go back some other information I’d already entered would be erased so I would get another error. After three tries I gave up, even more pissed off than before and sorry I even tried.

There’s a pretty good lesson here for all businesses. Even if it’s not really true, do you want to make your customers feel like you really don’t want to hear what they have to say? Make it as easy as possible to let your customers contact you. They might actually have something to say that you need to hear or maybe just letting them vent will help ease the situation.

As I mentioned before I rarely go to McDonalds these days and now I’m even less likely to return.